Gatherings
FUTURE IMAGINATION SUMMIT: GoFA Launch 2019
Original Design Brief:
A gathering of people at the intersection of media, art, science, technology, social justice and wellbeing working collectively to catalyze an inclusive imagination of the future.
November 7 & 8, 2019
New York University
370 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY
Hosted by the Future Imagination Fund at NYU Tisch School of the Arts
Presented by Radical Imagination, a Shared Future of the Guild of Future Architects
In collaboration with the Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab and Sundance Institute.
Catalyzed & Supported by Ford Foundation’s Justfilms.
Quote
“Co-creation carries with it a profound respect for each person’s unique expertise, and also the knowledge that we must share both the burden and the liberation of determining our future collectively. There is an urgency to the challenges we face at this moment in history, and no one person, organization, or discipline can determine all the answers alone.”
— Katerina Cizek and William Uricchio, Collective Wisdom
WHY ARE WE HERE?
Imagination.
Each person at this Summit is actively engaged in imagining the future. Some of us are, or are supporting, inventors and innovators who imagine new tools, products and technologies to increase human power and ability. Some of us are, or are supporting, culture makers who cultivate our understanding of identity, purpose and values by making meaning through art, media, ritual and play. Some of us are, or are supporting, scientists who discover the way our reality works, imagine how it can be transformed, and experiment to illuminate the unknown.
Power.
Active imagination of the future is how humans guide the actions of the present and make our future reality. Imagination is shared through story and narrative—the way we design everything from the technology we invent to the social systems we implement, the norms in which we perform our identities, perhaps the mutations of our very DNA, and our perceptions of reality (i.e. secondary trauma from stories). As storytellers and story curators with the means of creation and distribution, each person at this Summit has the power to impact the trajectory of our future.
Responsibility.
Some of our past narratives set us on a trajectory that has had and is having catastrophic environmental, cultural, social, economic and political consequences. Many of these pitfalls could have been avoided had we not excluded people who had visibility where we had blindspots. Now is the time to engineer robust participation of people from a broad set of perspectives to imagine the future, so we can illustrate their ideas, share those ideas broadly, collectively prototype them, and evolve them through collaborative processes. We cannot risk having a small fraction of our global community define the values and features of our future systems. The stakes are too high.
Opportunity.
Not only do we have a small window to avoid the worst version of our future, but we also have an incredible opportunity to set a trajectory for a beautiful version of it. The disruptions of climate crises, overpopulation and surplus technologies require bold and immediate action. How might we seize the opportunity to bring about changes that harness exponential technologies to bring global prosperity and environmental harmony? How might we design a future that abolishes scarcity-based, oppressive systems, and instead invests in every person to unlock the full scope of human potential?
HARVEST: GoFA Harvest 2022, Catskills, NY
ORIGINAL DESIGN BRIEF:
Introducing Harvest 2022: GoFA’s annual community gathering
Dates: June 28 + 29 (arrival evening of 6/27, departure morning of 6/30)
Location: The Arnolds House
Why call it Harvest?
This is intended to be GoFA’s annual community gathering. Like a traditional harvest, The Guild brings the spirit of generosity to celebrate its collective efforts as practicing future architects. It is a ceremony that honors members’ connection to the land, to all sentient beings, to each other, and to themselves. It is also a moment of rest and rejuvenation before planting new seeds.
Context
The very first GoFA convening took place in November 2019 with a small group of members. It was a powerful gathering that provided an anchor for collective trust-building and meaning-making as the world entered a tumultuous time. The Covid pandemic made it impossible for large-scale, in-person gatherings in 2020 and 2021. As the GoFA community carefully emerges from two years of deep learning, it is important to treat the next “convening” as a major milestone for members to calibrate expectations, envision shared futures, honor commitments, and celebrate each other. Members will also dedicate time and space to discuss and process sensitive issues that may have caused confusion and disappointment. These issues may have arisen from within the GoFA community, or have been triggered by the macro environment surrounding members’ life and work. Without dwelling in the past, the Guild will gracefully acknowledge its members’ loss and grief so they can move into a new chapter with deeper trust and optimism.
A Collective Rewilding
Harvest 2022 gathers the GoFA community in the charming Catskills, away from digital devices and the stress of “getting shit done.” Members will sit around campfires, trade stories, break bread with fresh local bounties, sing, dance, and dream together from dusk to dawn. Attendees will harvest everything they learned in the past two years to help each other build more wisdom, compassion and resilience. As they bear witness to each other’s joyful reunion with Mother Nature, they will summon their wildest selves to imagine a world that’s beyond their wildest imaginations.
Proposed Program Flow
The proposed agenda is based on the following program directions, with the theme of being “in community:”
Connect to beautiful nature
Create “negative space” for serendipity
Share member-led content
Emphasize ritual and artifacts
Enjoy music/food/fire
(Source: 2022 GoFA Annual Harvest Program Design Workspace June 18, 2022)
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