We Are All Futurists
Task
To create an interactive installation that empowers Kew visitors to see themselves as futurists.
We Are All Futurists is an interactive installation that seeks to empower people to think of themselves as futurists. It seems that only scientists, futurists, and other experts can imagine and speculate about the future. But with this workshop, we wanted to demonstrate that we can all be futurists and that our vision and curiosity are crucial to imagining better futures for all.
In collaboration with Kew Gardens, we took over their massive tent and set up We Are All Futurists, which was carried out during four weekends in June and July. With over 700 participants, the activity was embraced by people of all ages from more than 40 countries.
But what is We Are All Futurists about? This interactive installation takes the shape of a quiz, or more like a personality test if you will, in which the visitor can find out what is their futurist archetype. At the start, the visitor is given a clipboard with an answer sheet and then they embark on a 12-question journey about the future of food. There are no right or wrong answers, as the question revolves around how the visitor imagines the future: from agricultural drones that will farm our food to hyperlocal food systems that will go back to more rural ways of living.
After the visitor has filled out their answer sheet, they hand it over to the staff who will tell them their archetype. From The Activist to The Critic, The Visionary or The Keeper, each archetype reflects how each visitor regards and envisions the future. After they have been given their archetype, they can read more about it in the next area of the installation, in which they will find a big banner with each type. There, they are given not only a description of their archetype but also tips to develop their future thinking skills, as well as some book recommendations and challenges according to their type.
This installation seeks to make the visitor an active part in the collective imagining of the future of food, and the last area of the installation is dedicated to just that. After reading about their archetype, the participants can turn over their answer sheet, on which they have space to answer a simple yet complex question: How do you envision the future of food by 2050? After writing down their answer, they can share it in the ballot box as a symbolic way to vote for their future.
All the collected data was not only useful to see the percentages of each archetype (fun fact: most kids turned out to be visionaries!) but also to find out what are the most relevant issues when asked all kinds of participants about the future of food.
As we read through the hundreds of answers, we started to see some reoccurring concepts that were shared by a large number of participants.
These are the top six most mentioned words in the workshop.
HOMEGROWN / LOCAL
COMMUNITY / SHARING / ACCESS
PLANT-BASED / VEGAN / LESS MEAT
TECHNOLOGY
HEALTH / NUTRITION
WASTE
As a way to encourage participants to share their vision of the future, we illustrated some of the participant’s answers throughout the summer. Illustrating those futures not only helps visualize them, but they make them more tangible, more real. In the end, how are we going to head to a future that we can’t even visualize?
