Creative? We want you!

CultureFutures
United Kingdom (London)

Are you a creator focused on social change? Or a hub of art-ivists whose work benefits your community?

CultureFutures is a new storytelling project that maps creative and cultural projects with a social mission – and the entrepreneurs behind them.

As the future is all about collaboration, Atlas of the Future is excited to join forces with Goldsmiths Institute of Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship and British Council Creative Economy to showcase the artists, creators, curators and collectives who are helping to build a better – and more imaginative – world. Together we’re on the hunt for the talent behind work with aesthetic, financial and social value.

Increasingly, creative work and policy happens in interdisciplinary ways, and our complex world requires solutions beyond any one sector. We hope that CultureFutures will result in initiatives that widen people’s choices and develop talents, leading to development work which is transformative and sustainable for the world’s creative communities.

“We believe innovation flourishes when diverse perspectives, disciplines and skills meet,” explains Caroline Meaby, ‎Senior Programme Manager, Creative Economy, British Council Arts, “and that people steeped in arts and culture can bring much-needed critical reflection, ingenuity and empathy to some of the hardest problems facing the world today.”

The Atlas has mapped some truly inspired projects from across the globe: Turning Tables helps marginalised young people from refugee camps and urban slums gather around turntables to find their voices in music and film; Badilisha Poetry X-Change is the largest online archive of African poetry in the world; Junk Kouture encourages teens to create outrageous trash fashion by recycling; Smart Highway sees jellyfish-inspired roads of tomorrow reimagined by a Dutch design team; and Architecture of Radio offers everyone a window into the psychedelic signals of our Wi-Fi world.

Now we need you to help us to find out about the people out there making critical contributions to hope and possibility, and countering messages of fear, division and hatred. We want to hear about creative and cultural entrepreneurs from all parts of our planet – from East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa to the Antarctic.

We’ll shine a light on their creativity through features, thought pieces, videos, events, AtlasCharts and our much-loved FutureHero interviews – celebrating the journeys and sacrifices that have been made along the way.

We will be rolling out 60+ projects with aesthetic and social value, and featuring interviews exploring the power of awe-inspiring collectives. We’re calling them ‘FutureLeagues’.

These first five projects are just the start…

 

 

⚡ 1. A celebration of Brazil’s diversity

“Creativity is the bedrock of how we interact, how we question, how we love and how we break into a better place. A modern world that doesn’t allow the creative juices of our better selves to be the bedrock of how we behave, is a world I don’t want to live in.”

Brazil’s culture-friendly tax law, a bus trip in India where he met his future wife and a desire to dive deep into his growing family’s roots all played their part in the genesis of Somos Brasil: Marcus Lyon’s multi-layered exploration of the beauty and diversity of Brazilian identities.

 

⚡ 2. Pakistani women break taboos with AI

“The bad guys are out there, but the good will prevail through it all if we come up with creative solutions.”

Girl motorbikers, transgender activists, divorcee entrepreneurs and female cricket journalists; digital platform Aurat Raaj shows you a different side of Pakistan by breaking taboos with AI and cartoons. Meet Raaji – the patriarch-fighting survivor of an honour killing attempt.

 

3. Mapping Africa’s untold stories

“A lot of young Africans have a tendency to think their country is bad. We want people to have a good image of themselves so they can love themselves” – Elsa Miske

Not content to let poverty, war, corruption (and giraffes) dominate Africa’s story, Mapp Up is the video-sharing platform changing the face of African media by sharing local stories through local eyes. They train budding storytellers to make – and map – videos of a brighter side of life.

 

4. Libraries with buckets of love

Is there anything sweeter than a library made from ice cream buckets? Yes. One whose facade spells out “books are the windows to the world” in binary code. Add a community area that raises awareness about plastic waste and it’s a sweet recipe for a better future in Indonesia.

The books are the cherries on top.

 

5. South Africa’s solar cinema in a box

sunshine cinema

Turning the silver screen green and providing a ray of light in South Africa (literally), Sunshine Cinema is not just an initiative of mobile cinemas powered by the sun. It’s even more brilliant than that. A Johannesburg-born pair curate content about the heroes doing positive work in the world and take it to diverse communities to get people talking about HIV, deforestation, water and other pressing social issues.

“Thinking beyond one’s enclave is important – to imagine future possibilities and viable solutions to the many social problems we face.”

AtlasActions: Feel the joy and want to take part? Comment and share the CultureFutures stories:

► Link to our Twitter and Facebook using #CultureFutures

 Sign up to AtlasNews to get a first look at new projects

Now we need you to help us to find out about the people out there making critical contributions to hope and possibility, and countering messages of fear, division and hatred. We want to hear about creative and cultural entrepreneurs from all parts of our planet – from East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa to the Antarctic.

► Submit a #CultureFutures project

 

Written by

Lisa Goldapple, Editor, Atlas of the Future (19 March 2018)

Project leader

Gerald Lidstone, Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship, Goldsmiths University; Caroline Meaby, British Council Creative Economy; Cathy Runciman, Atlas of the Future

Partners

This project has been selected as part of CultureFutures, a new storytelling project that maps creative and cultural projects with a social mission – and the artists, collectives and entrepreneurs behind them.

Atlas of the Future is excited to join forces with Goldsmiths Institute of Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship and the British Council Creative Economy.

Support the Atlas

We want the Atlas of the Future media platform and our event to be available to everybody, everywhere for free – always. Fancy helping us spread stories of hope and optimism to create a better tomorrow? For those able, we'd be grateful for any donation.

Creative Commons License

Comments

 

  1. Jane Kay

    Awesome.

  2. Jane Kay

    Awesome.

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