A virtual conference offering a chance to deeply re-imagine what our urban spaces might be – for now, and for the future.
We ask YOU…what is the city you dream of?
2020Visions dreams forward. We ask not what we’re upset about, but rather what we want to move toward. What new possibilities does this moment offer for true equity, safety, unity, progress.
In collaboration with Union Theological Seminary. Keynote speeches by inspirational civic leaders Energizing examples of models, large and small sparking the imagination and providing solutions.
There will be sessions of scenario planning and “collective dreaming” tackling “The City We All Dream of.”
Using dynamic virtual platforms, the conference will provide narrative experiences to mimic an in-person event, a multiverse of experiences and encounters. The pillars will be five visionary models of cities, planned for Istanbul, Senegal, Malaysia, China. How are these centers grappling with climate change and inequity? More importantly, on a granular level, the conference will present many ingenious models proposed or successfully in existence, community-based, tackling neighborhood equity, police reform, Black and female entrepreneurship, equal access, urban farming – even bicycle storage.
The city, always evolving, is more than a collection of buildings – it’s an architecture of relationships. The conference will address our largest aspirations. It will culminate in next steps: an Open Call for proposals redesigning urban reality, and opportunities for attendees to engage in and support ongoing projects.
2020Visions is dedicated to harnessing the artistic imagination to creat new paradigms and new models of society. Drawing upon the imagination and experiences of artists in particular, it will reimagine the world we live in.
Collaborations
A year ago, through a nomination process, we invited artists to submit two-page solution-proposals, ideas small or large, fanciful or real, in the following areas: the New City, the New Politics, the New Body, the New Mind, and the New World.
In our first year, we incubated eight boundary-pushing artist collaborations. We paired artists with pragmatic problem-solvers: scientists, engineers, ethicists, culture bearers, and technologists. We helped guide their ideas toward progressive stages of realization. Each artist received seed monies to help take their inspiration to the next level.
Projects were as varied as a technique for freeing artificial intelligence from racial bias; quadratic voting based on “ethical imagination;” the dining experience of the future. They were as original as a video game teaching science through hip-hop; as hopeful as a colony of seagrass to restore New York waterways; as ambitious as an app to easily catalogue all artworks throughout the world; as visionary as an initiative to protect the Rights of Nature within cities; as far-reaching as a process to chart non-verbal modes of communication between groups.
As a cultural incubator and learning organization, 2020Visions supports innovation and collaboration across sectors. Our goal is to remain nimble, anarchistic, and experimental. We are vested in leveraging human creativity by developing sustainable practices.
As we went, we refined our efforts to help develop projects. Collaborative teams presented in-process work to “salons” of invited audiences. They met with us for guidance twice monthly. Now we are preparing for Stage 2—the accelerator phase—of collaborations. This has been a year of true growth.
Droppin’ Science

NATURESHIP: A New Municipality and A New Human Condition

Team
Nicole Mackinlay Hahn
Artist
Grant Wilson
(Collaborator), Executive Director & Directing Attorney, Earth Law Center; Local Native Knowledge Keepers and the Harlem Community (Stewards and Collaborators)
Synch.Live

Team
Hillary Leone
Artist
Daniel Bor
(Collaborator), Cognitive Neuroscientist, University of Cambridge, UK
Dagmar Divjak
(Collaborator), Cognitive Linguist, University of Birmingham, UK
Working Titles For A New Futurist Cookbook

Seagrass: Revitalizing Our Waterways

Binary Calculations Can Not Assess Us

Team
Stephanie Dinkins
Artist
Surya Mattu
(Collaborator), Artist, Engineer, and Investigative Data Journalist
Datalogue Raisonné™

Ethical Imagination

Collective Dreaming
Hello!
Local Labs
Our core belief is that artists are inventors -- but that the creative imagination belongs to everyone. This three-session program is aimed at “those left out of these conversations: teens in underserved communities, seniors -- and even the incarcerated. Local Labs seeks to unlock the imagination and show its potential to solve problems. For our October pilot program, we partnered with Exalt Youth, a New York City-based initiative for court-involved youth.
NEXT INSTALLMENT: April 2021