1.
Future Views:
Planning with the people of the future
Supporting consultation about the
future with young people to shape
local Cultural Education Partnerships

2.
Stand somewhere on the line
Where is your future vision from dystopia to utopia?

3.
”I was too tired”
“My friends wouldn’t come”
“I didn’t know about it”

4.
Drivers of change:
Mapping the context

5.
Drivers for change

6.
Relationship as lever for change
Internal
Things I can
control or
influence
External
Things I have
less power over Relational

7.
Key insights: External factors
• Economic, political & environmental change factors
present the biggest challenges. Will affect resources
profoundly: materially and socially.
• But, technological advances (e.g. 3D imaging, data
analysis) offer many opportunities to creatively tackle
these problems.
• Need to face challenges by deepening collaborations,
thinking systemically, opening to digital creativity and
involving young people in our future plans.

8.
Key insights: Relational factors
• Digital technology is only one of many drivers for change
in education and future skills.
• Although some aspects of technology are perceived by
CYP to be a threat, particularly the automation of jobs,
there are many positive opportunities for harnessing
technology to develop creativity, empathy and problem-
solving.
• Progress threatened by Govt cuts and education reforms
and Brexit.

9.
Key insights: Internal factors
• CYP highly conscious of a challenging future; accredit stresses to
wider global issues and high-stakes academic curriculum.
• Social division also identified as problematic. Key to community
resilience is ensuring people collaborate and know how to
defuse tensions.
• Interventions through cultural learning will help address these
issues, empowering CYP to be cultural leaders and creative
innovators.

10.
• 21st C jobs - unimaginably different?
• Imagine with data trends + critical uncertainties. Think of
capacities not jobs.
• Tech geared more to grand challenges: social and
environmental problems
• Emotional labour: defusing conflict and caring
• Imaginative labour
• Reconnect to place: remote work, local supply post-Brexit
The people the future need…

11.
Far Future:
It’s all in the imagination

12.
Future Assembly (Annette Mees)
• Pilot emerged post-Referendum
• Brought together teens & over 60s, to create aspirational
visions of the future.
• 1st Assemblies took place in Liverpool, Exeter, Ipswich,
Newcastle & London.
• Mirrors creative process; merging techniques from
theatre, creative writing and future visioning.
• Allows participants to cross existing divides and co-
create values, visions and policy manifestos.

13.
• Preparation: open up the imagination and create an
ensemble
• Incubation: create a multitude of ingredients and ideas
of future visions
• Investigation: research, question & deepen initial ideas
• Kill your darlings: zoom in on the most important ideas
• Implementation: crystallise ideas into a shared
manifesto & create instant results through personal
pledges
Annette’s recipe

14.
Matrix technique
Using a matrix to create
four possible scenarios.
Helps imagine beyond
existing frames.

15.
Two Degrees festival
Artists commissioned by Arts
Admin to help audiences discuss
future scenarios around climate
change. Used strong visual
devices and humour.

16.
Look Out
Andy Field worked
with children to
devise one-to-one
conversation with
audience about
their future place, a
tour from a high
viewpoint.

17.
Future Views

18.
Now Near Future Far Future
Identify
the current drivers
for change.

19.
Now Near Future Far Future
Identify
the current drivers
for change.
Focus
on the impact.
What will this
mean?

20.
Now Near Future Far Future
Identify
the current drivers
for change.
Focus
on the impact.
What will this
mean?
Develop
ideas. What
new things will
exist?

21.
Now Near Future Far Future
Identify
the current drivers
for change.
Focus
on the impact.
What will this
mean?
Develop
ideas. What
new things will
exist?
Imagine
What will our
future world
be like?

22.
Young people said…
Worried about:
• Environmental change
• Automation taking jobs
• Creative opportunities
being squeezed
Hopeful about:
• Technology offering
solutions
• Being different and
forming a ‘creative
army’

23.
More cultural access,
more agency
However, young people’s sense of agency
to influence these worrying factors varied
according to locality and subject focus.
Those with most access to cultural
practice had most sense of agency in
relation to wider issues.

24.
What’s Next?
Using consultation to shape strategy
around a shared ‘Why’

25.
Drivers for change

26.
Relationship as lever for change
Internal
Things I can
control or
influence
External
Things I have
less power over Relational

27.
Internal
Need to
develop
capacities for
play & arts
External
Need to
develop
capacities for
work & social
action
Relationship as lever for change
Relational
Develop capacities by learning together

28.
Quotes from Future Views participants:
“Some people see the arts as a luxury, but actually
we see it as a need, as it gives you a chance to cool
off, almost like therapy.”
“People will be left to educate and access culture
themselves from technology”.
“Robots will take our jobs away”.

29.
Take this quote as an example
“If you don’t succeed in the core subjects, life will be
over”.
What WHY does it give you to plan cultural learning
for the future? What levers of change can you pull?

30.
InternalExternal
Relationship as lever for change
Relational
“If you don’t succeed
in the core
subjects,
life will be
over”

31.
Meaningful consultation with YP
• Ask them questions you genuinely don’t know the answer to
• Be aware of their limits in grasping jargon, policy and funding contexts
• Equip them to find out more about these things, if time
• Conversations best when professionals are co-consulted with CYP
• Focus on ‘why’ not ‘how’: separate consultation from planning of future
cultural learning

32.
Thank you
Have a wonderful future!