Take five minutes to watch A Protopian Future, an Ignite talk by Jenny Johnston. She offers a provocation to really think about and describe the future you imagine will come of the things you/we are trying so hard to change right now.
Here, Jenny asks what the world might look like 50 years after nuclear weapons are abolished. Your thing might be something different. You’re probably PUSHING for something to be changed / added / removed in the world; but what future are you PULLING toward? What’s the good and the bad—intentional or unintentional—of the future that you’re designing today?
Protopian stories imagine better futures but not perfect futures. They embrace a kind of messy progress. The reason we’re seeing this protopian surge right now is because humanity is in a weird place. We have this tangle of existential threats in front of us that we’re having a hard time seeing past and certainly our way through…. Protopian stories are powerful tools for reorienting ourselves toward hope and possibility and not dystopian dread.
After you watch Jenny’s video, go check out the farfutures.horizon2045.org project she edited. So great.
