E V E N T R E C A P
Climate Change Futures
Choosing Creativity Over Anxiety
1. Warmup Discussion
The workshop began with a reflective exercise around the future and around hope. At check-in, attendees engaged with a spectrum to indicate how they felt about the future. At their tables, they were guided to write, on a sheet of origami paper, what fills them with hope, before folding the paper into a flower. Finally, attendees discussed with one another why they felt the way they did about the future.
Takeaways:
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We are in an immense moment of anxiety about our society and about our planet.
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Connection with one another is key to overcoming this anxiety.
2. Imagining and Building
After Mary primed attendees with a series of futuristic, provocative examples, it was time for attendees to team up and imagine the future. Guided by Stuart Candy's "Thing from the future" framework, introduced by Ipsita, each team envisioned a future related to climate change. From that future, they identified a key object that might exist in that future. Then they browsed a library of recyclable materials to build a prototype of that object. Objects ranged from shoes to public spaces to vehicles to wearables—there was quite the variety! Some were hopeful, some were cynical, some were hilarious, but all were thought-provoking.
Each team got to present their "thing from the future" to another group and a handful shared with everyone. You can see some of the objects below!
Takeaways:
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When imagination is combined with making with our hands, fascinating things always emerge.
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Having the space to imagine and create together proved to be a great bonding exercise for many teams.
The Things from the Future!
3. Many futures and How to Get There
Fariha introduced the Cone of Possibilities, a framework for delineating how possible and how preferred each future might be. To drive home the fact that many possible futures exist, each team placed their "Thing from the future" on a drawing of the Cone of Possibilities.
Building on that, she introduced the concept of "backcasting" to prompt thinking around what would need to happen to move us from today to each imagined future.
4. HCD Lab Community Time
Evan switched up the Community Time activity to an activity in pairs built around an adapted version of an ideation activity called Mashup. Attendees listed out some interests and areas of expertise, then paired up to imagine what it might look like if the two of them hosted an HCD Lab event together. This sparked some interesting ideas and a number of the pairs wanted to follow up on their ideas!
5. Ice Cream Social
As usual, the night ended with an opportunity for further connection at a nearby ice cream shop. This continues to be a fan favorite!
It was cool to have a discussion about possible futures. I've been more pessimistic about climate change, but now I feel more hopeful.
I appreciated being able to reconnect w/ this side of my creativity (I'm often not thinking like this as an engineer).
You really created joy and creativity. What a beautifully designed workshop.