Introduction to the day.

Opening keynote > Sophie Strand in conversation with Cassie Robinson. Our first keynote of the day, Sophie, author of A Flowering Wand, will talk about the ecological imagination and her belief that all thinking and imagining happens interstitially – between beings, ideas, differences, mythical gradients. She’ll take us on a wandering path of deeply unfamiliar words and worlds - of “Lunar Kings, Lichenized Lovers, Transpecies Magicians, and Rhizomatic Harpists Heal.”

The Unimaginable > Exceptional times require an exceptional type of imagination. So, in the midst of multiple and historical planetary crises, how do we walk ourselves into what we cannot entirely foresee at this moment? What happens when we untether ourselves from "reality" as it is now, step into the unknown and then take a step beyond, into the unimaginable? In this session, author Dougald Hine and anthropologist Michal Osterweil, in conversation with Gabriella Gómez-Mont, will explore the perils of entrenched systems, as well as that peculiar moment when the world as we know it starts to disintegrate - and also the inherent possibilities of a time between worlds.

Ecological imagination - in this conversation between leading speculative futurist and designer Anab Jain, artist, writer and right to roam activist Nick Hayes and writer and publisher of Dark Mountain Charlotte Du Cann, we will explore how land and non-human beings can be approached as partners in the imagination. We will explore how thinking with non-human beings can provide different ways of understanding the world, opening up new possibilities for design and action. We will also think about the politics of the ecological imagination – how land rights and access are critical to nurturing this imaginative practice.

Vanessa Andreotti - author of Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and Implications for Social Action – will ask what stories we need to stop telling and ideas and institutions we need to stop investing in, if we are to open the imagination to other, as-yet unthought possibilities and consider the importance of the relationship with Land as partner in imagination.

Amahra Spence and Melz Owusu – Melz, who organises from a principle of liberation that “asks us all to be daring enough to radically imagine and speculate about the futures we are committed to creating” will be in conversation with Amahra, who is an artist rehearsing “a Life-Affirming Infrastructure”, always Inspired by the invitation abolition presents. Together they will talk about the work they are both doing to begin the building of these worlds and the infrastructures that they’ve seeded to make this possible - the Free Black University and Abuelos, amongst others.

Civic and Political Imagination at the City Scale – We have done cities (and democracy) a great disservice by thinking we could bypass deep engagement with the political, relational and dynamic nature of cities and societies, by trying to skip the difficult questions through mainly technocratic perspectives. As if the main mission of humanity was efficiency and productivity, instead of making efficiency and productivity just another tool for a larger social purpose. But political questions are first and foremost questions for the imagination - as Teddy Cruz, Fonna Forman, Michele D' Alena and Christina Adane will prove through both their theory and practice, in conversation with Gabriella Gomez-Mont.

Possibility and Plurality – this session creates a conversation between two leading thinkers who are reshaping how we perceive and make possibilities. Arturo Escobar helps us to understand how design’s world-making capacity can be channelled towards ways of being and doing that are deeply attuned to justice and the earth. Vlad Glaveanu offers new insights into the perception of possibility. In this conversation with Keri Facer they will explore the psychology, politics and practice of possibility thinking, the risks of the dark imagination, and the practical application of their ideas in making new worlds.

Realists of a Larger Reality: imagination and the everyday

(Infrastructuring - Part 2) – There are a set of reigning paradigms, institutions, norms, beliefs, vocabularies and daily practices that sustain the world as we know it in place, for better and for worse. So how do we go about hacking and shifting the existing infrastructure towards more expansive and just scenarios - towards an infrastructure for imagination - that can shape and resource the conditions for new, plural and collective imaginations to emerge? In these lightning talks, divided in two sessions, speakers from multiple disciplines and geographies will share their provocations on how to rethink foundational notions as ideas hit the ground.

Shilo Shiv Suleiman, Ann Light, Jonathan Holloway, Toronto Imaginal Transitions

Amahra Spence and Aisha Shillingford – for this last conversation of the day we will hear from two shining lights and pioneers in this cultural work. Amahra and Aisha will talk about their practices and projects at MAIA and at Intelligent Mischief. They will discuss who inspires and informs their work, about the Black Imagination, their ancestry and cultural traditions, and the resonance of those things at this time. This session will close the whole day out with the energy and joy of possibility, alongside a rigour and perspective on what it means to truly practice, resource and make space for this work.