Exploring Present Futures

Event: Onderwijsparade 2021

“Space is to design what movement is to dance or sound is to music. Like movement space is something that we use every day in all our activities … walking down the street, opening a door, laying down, sitting up etc. Our task (…) is to first become consciously aware of space so that we may experiment with ways of controlling it.”

(Anna Halprin, ‘Visual Design and Dance: An Outline of a Course given in New Hampshire at Mettler Farm Studio’, 25 June 1943)

image: instructions for the guided walk

We might think that imaginaries are about something yet to happen, a matter of the future. But what if we can already start to see, feel, smell, the future now?  

Commuters, we were once. But the direct surroundings of everyone’s home has become more important in the last pandemic year. Surroundings that many of us take for granted. In this guided walk, the participants made a start with experiencing a new imaginary about sustainable urban futures, in-the-making. We started from each participant’s own neighbourhood. By stimulating all the senses and shifting the look in an area so well known, participants were able to see their surroundings in a different way and experience the infrastructures that make our daily lives possible.

image: overview of the collections and brainstorm about the ideal post-pandemic neighborhood