Programme

When – Thursday 11 July 2019

Where – University of Brighton – City Campus

What – This one-day symposium gathers together academics, students, writers, artists and practitioners committed to developing imaginative, creative and ethical narratives of desirable futures to meet contemporary social challenges.

Dominant narratives of the future are apocalyptic or business-as-usual, the world will either end horribly and abruptly, or we will be saved by geo-engineering or a techno-fix. We champion work that challenges both catastrophising and complacent visions of the future that can exacerbate feelings of hopelessness, anxiety and powerlessness. Extraordinary and everyday utopias celebrates work – real and imagined – that promotes and inspires social change and sustainable, empowered futures.

We welcome critical and creative work that connects with and also creates narratives of extraordinary and everyday futures. These might include but are not restricted to one or a combination of the below:

Artistic futures

Pedagogic futures

Future communities

Interdisciplinary futures

Future natures

Future design

Organic futures

Diverse futures

Healthy futures

You will each have 20 minutes with which to share your work. This might take the form of a traditional presentation, but we also encourage work that offers creative alternatives to the conventional conference format.

Please submit a 300 word abstract (or use the equivalent in images, video, audio etc.) to Stuart Hedley at s.hedley@brighton.ac.uk

The abstract needs to include your name, affiliation, the title of your submission, an outline of your contribution and details of how you will you use your 20 minutes. The deadline is 5pm on 29 March 2019.

We anticipate a post-conference publication with a mix of creative and critical work.

www.brighton.ac.uk/creativefutures