Moral Imaginations

Thrilled to see some of the most experimental work I’ve commissioned being referred to by the UNDP. The interspecies Council on the Roding was a transformative experience for those involved back in 2023. Another concept we developed alongside Superflux was the ability for AI to speak on behalf of the river using data. The approach is currently being experimented with by Audrey Tang’s team in Taiwan using real world data! Keen to see how that develops too. https://lnkd.in/eTmtmeGy

𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀! 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗚𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗮 𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲 Two years ago in early 2023, the River Roding was given a voice. Using a process that was developed over years of careful experimentation, called the Interspecies Council, people were brought together over weeks and then in person to represent the voice of the river in decision making. Part of a larger Rights of Nature approach, the Interspecies Council aims to create transformative shifts in worldview, perspective and empathy, and raises awareness of the need to include and represent the voices of all living creatures and nature in decisions that concern them. On a sunny Spring day, the European Eel, the Fox, the Butterfly, the Soil, the Reeds, and the River Roding herself, gathered for a day on the riverbank - with squawks and rustles and drips and flaps - and wrote a pact for the Future Flourishing of the River Roding. Today, two years later, the River Roding has been given a voice. This time, it's in the form of governance, with a representative ‘Voice of the Roding’ on the Roding, Beam and Ingrebourne Catchment Partnership. It's the first river to have a voice in this way. Imagination is transformed into action, and there has been a change in the governance of how the interests of the river are represented by human beings. This is such incredible news. And perhaps it’s a signal that arts and community methods can help the Rights of Nature movement, shifting the imagination of people to go and change systems. The idea had been spoken about within the catchment partnership for several years and was proposed by the tireless efforts of the lawyer and river activist Paul Powlesland, who drafted the Declaration of Rights of the River Roding (https://lnkd.in/exKupQAC). The Interspecies Council provided a positive force to help turn this idea into action, with the Defra backing of the Interspecies Council helping show catchment partnership members that this was a positive approach to supporting catchment based decision making. So now the Roding, Beam and Ingrebourne Catchment Partnership has voted in favour of seeking a person to act as a voice for the River Roding at future quarterly meetings of the partnership (on an initial two meeting trial basis). This individual will use a Declaration of Rights of the River Roding as a guiding document for the position. The Roding having a voice is reliant on someone volunteering for the role - so maybe you should consider signing up if you feel passionate about representing the River Roding! Well done to all involved who are taking a leap to try a very different kind of approach. It's a first step to considering the impact of decisions on all the beings who call the river home. Governance is changing! Nature is being given a seat at the table. And imagination is growing. #RightsofNature #RiverRights #InterspeciesCouncil #Imagination

The story 📖 continues: In the spring of 2023, we did something magical and profound with the River Roding and Moral Imaginations - the first UK government-funded #InterspeicesCouncil. 🌊 It was always designed to be a beacon of hope - to inspire and show leadership towards the possibilities of non-human species being included in #decisionmaking. That work on the #Roding, plus the tireless efforts of Phoebe Tickell and other amazing folks in the UK (Lara Houston, Ruth Catlow, Sara Heitlinger, Ann Light to name just a few) is continuing to seep out and build. So it was a pleasure last October to join the Design Museum, especially with my inspiring colleague Rachel Fisher, to continue developing #ecological thinking in policy and design. Thanks for a great write up. 🖋️

The story 📖 continues: In the spring of 2023, we did something magical and profound with the River Roding and Moral Imaginations - the first UK government-funded #InterspeicesCouncil. 🌊 It was always designed to be a beacon of hope - to inspire and show leadership towards the possibilities of non-human species being included in #decisionmaking. That work on the #Roding, plus the tireless efforts of Phoebe Tickell and other amazing folks in the UK (Lara Houston, Ruth Catlow, Sara Heitlinger, Ann Light to name just a few) is continuing to seep out and build. So it was a pleasure last October to join the Design Museum, especially with my inspiring colleague Rachel Fisher, to continue developing #ecological thinking in policy and design. Thanks for a great write up. 🖋️

Curious about more-than-human design and policy? Check out our latest Substack where we share about our collaboration with the Design Museum and various participants from across design and policy making last October. 💭 - What new policies or frameworks are required to encourage more-than-human design as a widely applicable approach? - How do we design with or for other species, or by respecting an ecosystem more generally? - What historical traditions can we draw on to reposition contemporary design practice? - What policies, legal frameworks or incentives might be brought to bear?  - What is the acceptable face of more-than-human policy-making for governments that have promised they will grow the economy? We explored these questions with a roundtable of experts, distilled in this essay written by Justin McGuirk. 📰 Read it here: https://lnkd.in/eknn-Bdm and subscribe to our #Substack for future posts! As part of our approach to complexity, we practice #imaginationactivism, stretching the Overton Window of what is deemed possible, and translate philosophy and theory into practical frameworks, tools and interventions. #Imagination is itself a form of activism, but we go one step further to bridge it into the practical. Thank you to the participants James Peplow Powell, Rachel Fisher, Phoebe Tickell, Calvin Po, Ioana Man, Maan Barua, Cher Potter, Justin McGuirk and Philip T. #morethanhuman #nonhuman #interspecies #design #designchallenge #architecture #ecologicalthinking #policy #policymaking #decisionmaking #governance #sustainability #RightsofNature #NetZero #NetGain #rewilding

🎄 As 2024 comes to a close, we hope you can make the most out of this solstice season and take some time to rest and allow your imagination to expand and run wild. We invite you to slow down, and rather than seeing this period as a pause, to see it as your 'planned unplanned time', which is a concept we work with to legitimise time for imagination. 🕰️ In the hustle and bustle of the Western world, steeped as it is in capitalism and the progress narratives of modernity, it is far too often that we see our time only as valid and useful if it leads to concrete outputs and deliverables. 🌟 Imagination is subversive because it opens up new realities. People often talk about how if you can't imagine it, you can't do it. Here's another angle on the same idea: if you don't have TIME to imagine it, then you won't do it. What if the only way we will solve our problems, rather than keep on recreating them, is through taking time out from the doing to also do the imagining? We invite you to consider this time over Christmas and New Year as sacred, protected time for imagination. To support you, take a look at our Moral Imagination Matrix: ⌛ TIME & SPACE: How am I creating protected time and space to feed my imagination? Be specific. Protect the time from expectations, outputs and deliverables. 👐🏽 PERMISSION: Have I given myself the explicit permission to prioritise my imagination? Do I recognise the importance of nourishing myself in this way? ⚙️ PRACTICE: Can I choose 1-2 exercises to do that will stretch my imagination for the well-being of the whole? We look forward to hearing from you and send you warm festive greetings from the team at Moral Imaginations 🌠🤍 ✊ Mariame Kaba, American activist, grassroots organiser, and educator who advocates for the abolition of the prison industrial complex, including all police, is what we could call an imagination activist. She is the author of "We Do This 'Til We Free Us" and the originator of this quote: "We must imagine while we build, always both".

A few months ago, Naia Trust published a sensemaking review, exploring various projects and initiatives working towards Earth-centered consciousness. We have been thrilled to explore this document and to find so many allies and common synergies. Good to see friends at the Work That Reconnects Network, The Resilience Project, Global Diversity Foundation, The Wellbeing Project, Force of Nature, advaya, Embercombe, St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, Kincentric Leadership, Animate Earth Collective and many more! We are part of a strong growing movement, and the report has helped us see that more clearly 💖 Naia Trust’s sensemaking of the space led to six research categories: 🙏🏼 Inner resilience: grief, emotional & community processing  💡 Lighthouses: practice hubs & centres for transition  🌌 The imaginal: experimenting with animate futures  ✨ Celebrating cycles: ceremony, rituals, & rites of passage Dharma: non-duality & compassion  🌊 Tipping points: movements & narrative shifts We invite you to dive deep into this stellar publication, its meaningful insights and inspiring initiatives: https://lnkd.in/eA79M6ph. 🔍 The document is published as a sense-making exploration, mapping the diverse landscape of responses to the metacrisis and the many doorways to finding kinship and belonging with more-than-human lifeworlds. We were honoured to be selected as one of their interviewees and help inform their process. 🎯 We especially loved the focus on incorporating nature into our moral landscape, and cultivating wisdom, emotions and psychology alongside our technological prowess. This is at the heart of what Moral Imaginations is trying to cultivate through our programmes, workshops and trainings. If you see a project or focus that is missing, reach out to Naia Trust and they’d be happy to hear from you! #Earth #Earthcentered #consciousness #reimagine #metacrisis #polycrisis #kinship #morethanhuman #betterfutures

From the city to the sea, we were warmly welcomed by human and more-than-human beings in Denmark a few weeks back! 🇩🇰 We were invited to stir up the minds and hearts of people in Copenhagen, and the room was lively with questions, ideas and interactions. Then we continued North to take part in the City of Species project, in Aarhus. Not only were we greeted by sea gulls and crashing waves, but also by these strange creatures, an interactive performance of 'Human Plant' at the Center for Centre for Inner Sustainability / Væredygtighed. We were touched by these moss and mud beings dressed in suits, bringing nature to the room through theater and intense presence. 🇳🇴 If you followed our recent activity, you will have noticed that Imagination Activism has started to take root in the Nordics! After hosting a workshop in Oslo and launching the Norway Imagination Activism Hub and Network in September, we also took part in the #InnerDevelopmentGoals Summit in Stockholm last week. 🇸🇪

How can we re-imagine education to be in better service of life and care for the Earth? This is at the heart of the Re-Imagining Education Conference taking place between Oct 24-27th in partnership with Ecoversities Alliance. The intention of this online gathering is to convene people across geographies, knowledge systems and experiences, and to co(i)nspire with nature to sporulate the learning from diverse territories, nurturing the healing of our systems of learning across the globe. We have been invited to host two online sessions: On Friday Oct 25th at 1pm UTC, Phoebe Tickell will host an interactive workshop on ‘How to be an Imagination Activist’ Imagination Activism is a radical and rigorous approach to practice and strengthen shifts in perception, move from dreams to action, to create positive change and chart bold, ambitious futures. By changing the way we see the world, we can create new possibilities and new actions that serve all people, the planet, and the coming future generations. On Sat 26th at 2:30pm UTC, she will be sharing a panel with Rutendo Ngara, Four Arrows, Adler Yang and Edgard Gouveia Júnior on ‘Re-Imagining Research’. This session will feature researchers from different backgrounds and explore modes of research that might stretch our notions about how and why we research. Through themes like Indigenous cosmologies, imagination and play, the conversation has the potential to expand our understanding of research possibilities. We are blown away by the rich and diverse offers of this conference, and invite you to have a sense of it yourself: https://lnkd.in/egf7F97. We hope to see you there!

This week I am taking my work to Stockholm at the Inner Development Goals Summit. I’m thrilled to be working alongside Moral Imaginations founder and activist and now dear friend Phoebe Tickell on our track on: The Digital Mirror: AI's Prompt for Humanity Phoebe and I will be unpacking how to bring alive moral imagination in teams and companies to close the gap between how institutions function and how they can be transformed using an indigenous thinking. This is an ecologically inspired lens of seeing the world in multiple perspectives while staying rooted in values that promote the flourishing of all life on earth as one interconnected community of life. As always, I’ll be talking about #ubuntu ethics as a pathway to unlocking a moral imagination for how to grow our collective potential as humanity to keep mirroring inner with outer growth and vice versa. From our recent workshop at the European Forum Alpbach on climate action, Phoebe and I are delighted to once again combine forces on a shared vision of a world in which our best ideas come from our best imagination ✨ On a side note, it’s also my first time traveling to Sweden and so I’m a little bit excited about seeing Stockholm and beyond and what new ideas might be sparked at the summit when seeing the world with new eyes and embracing the city with a visitor’s beginner’s mindset. The sessions will be live streamed and so if you can’t make it in person, you can join the Summit online. More info on: https://lnkd.in/d7Hy4Cfz Many thanks to Tomas Björkman and Erik Fernholm for this invitation and the entire team working tirelessly behind the scenes to make this summit a smashing success 🎉 I am because We Are.