Yanira Matienzo

‘The main thing artists can do is demonstrate possibilities,’ says the civic practice artist Fran- ces Whitehead. By asking questions, breaking rules, designing intentional spaces and expos- ing people to other possibilities, artists prepare the ground for alternative ways of being and doing and provide the sense that the world we exist within is

“The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary.”

— Ursula Le Guin ― The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination

Where arts and culture are particularly great is in cre- ating the space for other things to happen.

– Annette Mees, Artistic Director, Audi- ence Labs at King’s College London

Like a railway network or an electricity grid, the infra- structure of the imagination requires long-term invest- ment and maintenance for it to continue functioning well and serving its com- munity(ies). This kind of patient, slow investment in spaces, places, relation- ships and the digital and social infrastructures of the imagination will build

I think the imagination is the single most useful tool mankind possesses. It beats the opposable thumb. I can imagine living without my thumbs, but not without my imagination. – Ursula K. Le Guin, Author.

The times are urgent; let us slow down.

– Dr Bayo Akomolafe, Philoso- pher, Writer, Activist, Professor of psychology, and Executive Direc- tor of the Emergence Network.

‘How do you work for another world while living in the one you are trying to change?’

art is the medium to convey a feeling that has yet to be put into words. ‘Art is the relief from the duty of coherence,’ says Dr. Joost Vervoort, Associate Professor of Transformative Imagination at the Copernicus Institute of Sus- tainable Development, paraphrasing John Law