UNESCO

I chaired and presented in a session entitled “Why Cultural Futures Make us Hopeful” at the Building Hopeful Futures Festival, a virtual side-event in the run-up to the UN Summit of the Future in New York (19 September 2024).

I was joined by the global artist Kai Altmann (XLE.LIFE) and the heritage professional Alison Heritage (ICCROM, Rome, Heritage Foresight initiative). Almost 40 people attended the session live.

This session explored the role of culture in anticipation and futures thinking. We discussed why a global Pact for the Future should take culture seriously, what we can learn from transcultural futurisms, and how cultural heritage can be a tool for future-making.

In my presentation, I argued that building better futures for human beings benefits from acknowledging the importance of culture for being human.

I gave three reasons why culture is so important in relation to future-making: it helps us (1) thinking across generations, (2) understanding how people are making sense of the world which informs how they act, and (3) asking in what future we all want to live.