The Project

Towards the end of 2023, we convened a diverse group of people who lived or worked in Southbank and embarked on a collaborative experiment of imagination and action.

“We need stories of belonging that move us toward each other, not from each other; ways of being human that open up the possibilities of being alive together; ways of navigating our differences that deepen our curiosity, that deepen our friendship, that deepen our capacity to disagree, that deepen the argument of being alive. This is what we need. This is the work of imagination.” 

- Pádraig Ó Tuama

In the face of a climate emergency and in an increasingly urbanised and disconnected world, we can find ourselves paralysed. Our abilities feel inadequate to the scale of the challenge, we feel alone in our views, and it’s difficult to know what to do or where to begin.

In Southbank, one of the most densely populated areas of Australia, we began by imagining how we might be together - how might we belong, in order to work together to create the futures we can be proud to pass on to future generations.

We wanted to explore how might we build the conditions to ensure people can access their agency and imaginative power, and that they feel able to articulate a vision of the future and see their place in shaping it?