Films, Events + Articles
Rubber Republic Films
Rubber Republic worked with the New Constellations team to create a short video about the collective imagination of the residents of Barrow-in-Furness and the new narrative the Barrovian ‘crew’ has begun to seed within and about its community.
Public Imagination
We will be releasing a new film at the RSA event in September about ‘Public Imagination'.’
Skoll World Forum
We participated in the Skoll World Forum with a session on “Building Imagination Infrastructure to Shape Better Futures.” During the discussion, Cassie Robinson, Farzana Khan, Imandeep Kaur, Iris Andrews & Rabab Ghazoul explored how seeding and growing an imagination infrastructure from the roots of communities can close the distance between the global challenges we face and the equitable and regenerative world we know is possible.
They shared what has been learned through the Emerging Futures Fund about what’s needed to equip communities to sense, imagine and shape better futures, and shared some of the initiatives patterning new hope and showing the power of community-led, collective imagination—with their practices, their rigour, and their creativity.
You can watch a recording of the discussion here.
Policy articles
Townscapes: The Value of Social Infrastructure
This paper, published in May 2021 by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at Cambridge University, explores the importance of investment in social infrastructure alongside physical infrastructure in order to attend to the spatial inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic. It assesses the economic, social and civic value of social infrastructure, defined as “the physical spaces and community facilities which bring people together to build meaningful relationships,” making the case that social infrastructure investment should be better aligned with investment in large-scale physical infrastructure projects in order to better support the recovery & revitalisation of those communities most badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
'Cultural rebirth': Covid-hit Barrow's bold vision for the future
New Constellations - a recipient of funding from the National Lottery’s Emerging Futures Fund - brought together 15 local figures to imagine new futures for the town of Barrow-in-Furness. Barrow has been badly hit by Covid-19, with one of the highest death rates in the UK from the virus. But even before the pandemic, it wasn’t doing well, often being described as one of the most unhappy places in Britain. Out of the collective imagining facilitated by New Constellations came a radical vision for the future of the town - involving replacing car parks with playgrounds, transforming the town centre into a thriving market filled with local businesses, and establishing community-run farms to alleviate chronic food poverty - which will inform the council’s direction over coming decades.