Nurturing the Infrastructure of Possibility
And Beyond is a participatory research lab took form in 2019, under the stewardship of Will Bull and Amy Foster-Taylor, to support the emergence of futures that nurture and celebrate wholeness, equity, care, and joy.
Whilst recognising the importance of the imagination in systemic change, early in our work, through different projects, in different forms, we kept encountering barriers to it. It became evident that we couldn’t safely expand the collective imagination and explore new futures, new presents, without contending with the wider context of Western modernity and its impact across different communities and our broader sense of possibility. Deep transformative change is not simply about envisioning new futures, but about expanding our capacity to hold new futures within ourselves.
Grounded within the Pluriverse and a deep sense of community, And Beyond has continued to grow and evolve, nurtured by all those who have participated with this work. Through creative projects and collaborations with communities, organisations, and universities, And Beyond is exploring how we can move beyond our ontological rigidity, our narrow lens of sight and feeling, tending to conditions and practices that allow us to expand our sense of what is and what could be, whilst acknowledging the very real impact of oppressive systems on our ability to soften, feel, and hear.
And Beyond is committed to developing this infrastructure of possibility, supporting the emergence of more just and equitable futures, through:
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Deepening our understanding of the ontological function of the imagination: how it enables us to participate in reality, and forms the contours of our sociocultural experience through the creation of ‘worlds’.
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Interrogating the impact of modernity (its systemic patterns of oppression and inequality) on the imagination, at a collective and individual level (with a strong emphasis on position, power, and privilege) and on our capacity for foundational change.
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Nurturing the spaces, conditions, practices, rituals, and conversations that expand our awareness of reality and allow us to cultivate a more intimate, harmonious relationship with ourselves, each other, and life itself.
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Exploring and supporting the development of the structures and systems that honour our social and ecological entanglement: creating and sustaining cultures of wholeness and communities of care.
Read more about why this work is needed here: Building the Infrastructure of Possibility.
Previous Forms
This work honours and expands that of many others, human and non human, across time and space, and has been featured in Vogue Business, Aeffect Journal, Fashion Revolution, Spirit of Design podcast, amongst others.
