From visual art, performance, music, design carried out by professionals or armatures – the arts are an important cultural asset in every society.

Join us in exploring the futures of the arts and experiment with the diversity of futures using a new methodology: A Futures Literacy Lab. In this shorted introduction to methodology – the Micro Futures Literacy Lab – you will dive deep into probable, desirable and alternative futures of the arts in the year 2040. You will stretch your imagination and experience the magic of collective intelligence knowledge creation. Together we will witness the crucial role of our capacity to imagine different futures, to allow emergence and to appreciate novelty.

What to expect

• Challenge your assumptions about the future and explore new paths to tackle the present.
• Experience the power of variety in the perspectives about the future and bring home concrete ideas for the arts in your specific context.
• Get familiar with the method of Futures Literacy Labs and investigate ways to deploy them in other topics.
• Strengthen your own Futures Literacy: Better understand the many ways and reasons the future can be used in the present.

How it works

This Micro Futures Literacy Lab will take place online on Thursday, April 8th, 2021, from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm CET. Alternating between small groups and the plenary, up to 15 participants will dive deep into different futures of the arts. You will first explore your assumptions underlying probable and desirable futures. To stretch your imagination, we then invite you to experiment with an alternative future. Concluding, we discover the emerging new questions and next interventions in the present.

We will collaborate in Zoom and in Miro. Registration is possible via Eventbrite and closes on April 5th. A fee of 40 - 60 Euros applies. You will automatically receive an invoice via Eventbrite. Contact us directly for other ways to sign up.

Who should attend

• Artists to identify new options for their work;
• Community leaders & art institutions to explore new paths for their activities;
• Researchers in academia and foundations to find new research questions and discover new linkages;
• Everyone wanting to learn about the method of Futures Literacy Labs.

Your facilitators

Stefanie Ollenburg is a researcher, designer and facilitator and holds a master's degree in Futures Studies from the Freie Universität Berlin. Since then, she has been passionately engaged in foresight processes, designerly thinking and Futures Literacy. She applies her extensive knowledge in teaching, projects and academia and accompanies participatory transformation processes. She was part of the consortium in the EU Erasmus+ project beFORE, which put together a prototype e-learning platform on Futures Studies and Futures Literacy.

Lena Tünkers is an entrepreneur, business designer and facilitator. She has designed and executed a variety of innovation processes in the start-up scenes of Denmark, Kenya and Germany and moderated several future laboratories on the topics of education, collaboration, and culture. From her work with the UN, Spotify, HelloFresh and Hugo Boss, among others, she brings experiences in stakeholder management and strategy as well as innovation development. She is a board member of Founders of Tomorrow and hosts the House of Beautiful Business in Copenhagen.