Visions2030 is devoted to harnessing the artistic imagination to forge new models of society.
How do you change the world? Or create an equitable, thriving universe with prosperity for all?
In 2018, playwright, arts critic, events producer Carey had an idea about creating an initiative focusing on the dynamism of the future. It was the moment of High Trump, the height of name-calling and doomscrolling. Why not, she thought, redirect all that energy of negativity and outrage in a different direction, toward the world we want to create?
She asked how do we catapult ourselves, instead, into agency and hope, and away from the reactive, negativity in which we simmer, the dystopian thinking that may amplify it and quickly gathered together fellow dreamers.
Carey had been inspired by dynamic artists such as Rick Lowe, Judy Baca, Suzanne Lacy, Mierle Ukeles, who use their art to create positive solutions — even if they are impractical, they open the mind up and inspire. For example, (This is a form she learned is called “social sculpture,” a term coined by Joseph Beuys, meaning that society is an artwork that we all can shape.)
Partnering with thought-leaders like New York’s Union Theological Seminary and CalArts in Los Angeles, with our pioneering Advisors, Carey and fellow travelers, forging a diverse team of dreamers to muse about how to collectively dream, how to harness the imagination and its power to invent. And to plan events. In January 2020, what was then called 2020Visions was launched.
Our platform immediately launched the first of its many programs intended to inspire. For our Imaginator StartUp we invited eight artists to propose “wild and crazy” ideas to address challenges facing society -- everything from climate change to racial biases in AI to divisive thinking that leads to war and conflict.
We paired “idea proposals” with “practical problem-solvers” -- biologists, ethicists, neurophysicists -- to bring dreams toward reality. We ended up with eight incredible prototypes, from games teaching STEM through HipHop to healing the East River through eel grass. [See here]
Starting right away, we staged include salons, incubators, immersive workshops, and other types of gatherings with a mandate to “dream forward.” For a year and a half, we produced a highly acclaimed newsletter mapping out Visions2030’s philosophy, our role models, and artists we admire. In a time of often intense political negativity, we ask, “What do you want the future to look like?”
We have staged gatherings, like the Dec. 2020 New City: Navigating the Future, a How-To, including 64 speakers over 3 days, presenting forward-looking visions for our urban spaces. And the May 2021 Future of Work, exploring everything from decentralized employment structures to unions to Guaranteed Basic Income.
In early 2021, we re-named ourselves Visions2030. We pioneer new methods of reaching into our untapped levels of consciousness to problem-solve, like our periodically held Collective Dreaming workshops, where we collaboratively imagine together where we want to move as a society. Our Local Labs has collaborated with ExaltYouth, which works with court-involved young people, to mentor in showing the power of imagination as a tool for invention and real-life problem-solving.
Those who have participated have universally cited the turbo-charged mind-opening sense of optimism, new possibilities, and hope they received.
Visions2030 works in a collective format, a diverse team of dreamers, an “organism” rather than an “organization.” Moving beyond the dystopian, we embrace positive solutions. Our watchwords are vision, collaboration, positivity, inclusivity, and anarchy.
Most recently, we dubbed the year 2022-23 the year of “New Consciousness.” Celebrating this, we are holding a massive event, Visions2030: Earth Edition, A Festival of Eco-Consciousness in Los Angeles, September 15-24, which aims to shift the climate situation by shifting consciousness. It will be an “exploratorium” of sensory corridors – including, notably, an immersive dome inviting visitors to dream their own eco-futures. CalArts, Valencia, CA.
For more: visions2030.studio