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We are moving on now from @_dspk's takeover to live-tweet our next workshop, which has just started:
Could museums be the engine-rooms of the imagination?
We're here live with @HappyMuseum @hannahfox @robintransition and @lucyhneal - follow our live-tweet thread below
Could museums be the engine-rooms of the imagination?
We're here live with @HappyMuseum @hannahfox @robintransition and @lucyhneal - follow our live-tweet thread below
"Today's session forms part of our No Going Back workshop series. When the pandemic hit, in this time of change, we are looking at how workshops can invite us to pause and to think afresh about the role and potential of museums," says Hilary Jennings of @HappyMuseum
"How might they contribute to wider civic engagement, shape a more compelling and inclusive proposition, and forge new connections, conversations and modes of expression?"
Hilary now introduces our first speaker, @robintransition, author of "From What Is to What If - unleashing the power of the imagination to create the future we want".
"I like to think of where we are at the moment as being like standing on the top of a mountain," says Rob, "that we are standing on top of this mountain and beneath our feet is more carbon, plastic, more debt, more inequality than we have seen before."
"If this was a challenge of facts and figures and numbers, we would have done this in the '80s. Now a big part of this I feel is about creating that longing for a post-carbon world. That's where the imagination is so fundamentally important to this conversation."
"And particularly now, it feels like this argument, for me, becomes stronger and stronger. That actually we are living in a time when imagination, which John Dewey defined as being "the ability to see things as if they could be" is of the most profound importance."
Rob shows the work of Leeds-based artist James McKay, who draws the future. "He goes out into Leeds and starts to draw what he sees in front of him, but adapts it to how it might be in the future. This is his vision of that city if it was the most biodiverse city in the country."
"So creating space in our own lives is really important. Creating space like this, in my town in Totnes, for communities to come together and to dream, and to ask "what if", and to think about the future, is vital."
"An important thing, I think, to start off with here is the observation that imagination to a degree is a function of privilege. If your basic needs for shelter and security and food and so on aren't being met, it's much, much harder to lead an imaginative life."
"If we want to bring about a kind of renaissance of the imagination across society, we are not starting from a level playing field."
Rob next draws our attention to the 'Imagination Sundial': https://www.robhopkins.net/2020/06/30/introducing-the-imagination-sundial/
Our participants split into groups to discuss Rob's presentation and provocations. Thank you @robintransition!
Our participants split into groups to discuss Rob's presentation and provocations. Thank you @robintransition!
Once our participants are back in the main event room. Hilary introduces our next guest, @hannahfox, Project Director for the redevelopment of Derby Silk Mill - the site of the world's first factory as a new Museum of Making @derbymuseums.
Hannah introduces us to the Silk Mill, which had been part of the City Council Museums service as an industrial museum for nearly 40 years. "There were some significant challenges. Not least the visitor numbers and a building where only two floors were in use as a museum."
"...but also a future planned that was dashed when the council's proposal for the mill was kicked back by the funders as being unambitious and without support. But with challenge comes opportunity - including the fact the funding application was rejected."
"The museum was closed to divert the funds to support the move into trust. While that was painful for many folks, who worried about change and about the building being lost as a city icon, the closure created space for change to happen."
"We began by opening up the conversation with our communities and stakeholders, starting from a point of: If anything was possible, what could we do here?"
"Over 800 people came in and shared their thoughts, challenges and ideas. They helped test those ideas over the coming months and years. Over the first 18 months, we did over 100 activities engaging with over 30,000 people in a closed museum."
"We asked ourselves these questions: How might we create a place that represents and embodies these stories that are relevant and useful to the town and its citizens? How might we use the making of a museum as an opportunity to experiment, involve and enrich?"
"We found out by prototyping low cost, open new skills. The fact we can make mistakes and we will adapt and change. People got involved in all aspects, many of whom had either never visited the museum before, or very rarely came to the mill beforehand."
"The idea is for multifunctional museum and civic space, where not only can you understand our making history, but you can be part of making your own history through the programmes."
"When it opens in 2021, it isn't the end, or even the beginning. It's the next phase of this as somewhere to seek inspiration and develop the knowledge and relationships to make ideas real, and to help make the future challenges, and also to make the most of opportunities."
What a fantastic insight into the continuous creation of @MuseumofMaking from @hannahfox - thank you so much!
Next, Hilary introduces us to @lucyhneal a writer, theatre maker and the author of 'Playing for Time: Making Art as if the World Matters.' Lucy continues with her segment, 'How to hold space for people’s imaginations to flourish,' before we open our next break-out rooms.
"I was going to approach the question of imagination through the simple concept of our each own practice. That whether we have jobs, whether we are employed, whether we hold particular formal roles, whether we are freelance or volunteers, community activists, citizens, makers."
"...but to hold this very simple frame in mind about the practice you are developing for yourself is absolutely true to you, and that, in a very unstable world, it can become something of a constant," Lucy continues.
"It can change its form, but it can hold its intention and purpose, and it's always, always in the making."
"'The future must enter you a long time before it happens.' I just love that quote. It kind of hums and sings in front of us, not always understandable, but I think it holds an amazing truth."
@lucyhneal draws our attention to @battersea_arts's Grand Hall one year ago. "In this instance, it was a pop-up tomorrow, and the idea of building, having a group of people who would build and entire town."
"They became very practically involved in looking at the systems that operate, whether it's energy, water, transport, selling, food growing, cooking, sharing, design, wellbeing, and governance and transport, all the things a town needs."
"And then we let everybody loose, with the simplest of materials - with chalk, tape, scissors, cardboard, a lot of cardboard. Then the idea was that the town was then built, with people having recognised that they were going to play a role."
"Working out whether it was a growing space, and just pure play really, in people working together."
"These are ways in which we can hold space and we can create the chance for people to play and imagine, and step into the creation of a future."
Next, Lucy points us to Forever Fishponds @FFishponds in Tooting, SW London. "Fishpond Fields is a playing field right in the middle of Tooting. There is not much green space in Tooting" she says.
"It's currently locked and Hilary and I began to question: why isn't the space open to a local community? Why does it have to stay a sports pitch? Years back it had moats and water - there is a river close by - in medieval times it actually had fish ponds, hence its name."
"We asked the local community to come together, to begin to imagine what could happen there. We held a day earlier this year, when we asked people to conjure in their imaginations. We said, "What if it was open to all, forever?" and this conjuring, re-imagining it being forever."
"Recognising during Covid the lack of green space, the council did in fact say that they recognised there was so little green space in the heart of Tooting, they opened it over the summer. People had this phenomenal, joyous chance to pick blackberries and to lie on the grass."
"Again, we got this incredibly rich layering of possibility, of being in the natural world, outdoor learning, people growing their own food."
"We have now come to the point where we have to distill that and work with our local authority. We are now at the key point of: Where does our conjuring and imagining actually meet the hard graft of changing the way a council comes to a place?"
"Essentially the imagining has shaped itself into demands that the field have local engagement and the communities involved."
"We had laid down the imagining that the fields have seen other things in the past ... Nobody can take these experiences away from us, and they helped to breathe possibility into this long-term idea that Forever Fishponds, a piece of land, should be forever." @FFishponds
Our participants break out into groups again to discuss the ideas raised by @hannahfox and @lucyhneal in their presentations. Thank you so much for providing us with such stimulating food for thought (and food for practice!) on imagination in climate activism.
