Reimagining Melbourne in 2030
Community explorations in possible futures for Melbourne …
On a rainy Saturday in May , a group of Melbournians gathered to live in 2030 as if we’d made it - as if Melbourne was a place where everyone has the conditions to thrive and we are living within our planetary boundaries.
The day was an invitation to explore that happens when we take our imaginations to Melbourne in the future through six different sites:
democracy, biodiversity, riverbanks, end of life, neighbourhood rituals and more than human decision making.
Arriving with our full
selves and capacities
We began by exploring what our individual and collective relationships and full-bodied capacities are to bring into this 2030. Led through somatic exercises by performer Jai Allan Wright the group arrived in place, on country and with new awareness for space and each other.
Riverbanks
Activating our senses the Yarra River Keepers led participants through a silent disco soundscape of a riverbank in 2030, while touching and holding plants found along the banks of the Birrarung | Yarra - discussing how can we all understand our roles as River Keepers.
Felt democracy
Using carefully designed felt shapes, facilitated by the Centre for Public Impact, people were invited to recreate and reimagine relationships, information flows, the philosophy and the practice of civic participation. Exploring what it does when we recenter and refigure the idea of service at the heart of democratic process.
Biodivercity
Guided by artist - academic - activist Aviva Reed participants were plunged into dreaming up a biodiverse 2030. One with wildlife corridors through the city, one with rich soundscapes, one where we humans have to reckon with our tolerance for bugs. Mapping backwards from this future everyone placed themselves on this pathway - inhabiting the regenerated Melbourne.
End of life
Not always the first topic you think of when exploring possible futures in Melbourne - but something that Greater Melbourne Cemeteries Trust are sitting with. What are our relationships to the end of life industry, to the rituals after life - what is our relationship to death, life, memorial, ritual and the cyclical nature? How can we in Melbourne honour, celebrate all the different traditions and emerging traditions of end of life care.
Neighbourhood connections
Invited into the lounge room of sisters Dounia and Roukaya, taking off their shoes at the door people were invited to reflect on what fills their cup. How are we holding precious neighbourhood connections we already have, what supporting infrastructure like share libraries and tool sharing can bolster these street conversations and bring them across the threshold into our households and living rooms.
More than human decision making
Who gets to sit at the table when we’re making decisions? Who’s in the room where it happens? We already have a long way to go in equalising access to decision making power, but what’s on the next horizon in this space? Pru Gell from the Coalition of Everyone asked people to stretch their imaginations even further and embody the life of a non-human being, whether that’s the Merri creek, the Kingfisher, the White-tailed spider, the Moon. How might we shift our gaze to be in kinship with the living world.
And so what? What do these experiments and explorations in possible futures for Melbourne mean?
As someone succinctly summed up at the end of the day - “this 2030 we’re exploring, it’s already here”.
No, we don’t have pigeons making policy decisions (yet) but this afternoon we spent together showed we do have the capacities, the creativity, the humility and curiosity to explore others’ imaginations, bring forth our own and start to build pathways towards a possible future we care about.
This is part of Regen Melbourne’s on-going collective reimagining and remaking of Melbourne. The six stations we explored and dreamed through are partial themes - there’s plenty more to come as we deeply reimagine how we value our care economy, how we distribute and regenerate our resources and how we create the conditions for everyone to thrive.
Join us for more.
WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Aviva Reed , Dounia & Roukaya Hassoun, Jai Allan Wright, Alli Edwards and the Centre for Public Impact, Pru Gell and Coalition of Everyone, the incredible team at Goodworthy, Mabu Mabu, Simon and The Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust and Karin at Yarra Riverkeeper Association.
This event was part of narrm ngarrgu | Melbourne Knowledge Week, 9 May – 15 May 2022, proudly presented by the City of Melbourne.
