Ecological Imagination in Turbulent Times
Join us for an evening of conversation, music and film, exploring the role of imagination in socio-ecological change.
At a time when narratives of uncertainty, breakdown and crisis increasingly shape public life, this event asks what role imagination might play in opening-up alternative possibilities and pathways for socio-ecological transformation. How might we cultivate or quicken our collective imagination in service of rebuilding and remaking our world? What becomes thinkable if we approach imagination not as something we have (or are lacking), but something we participate in, inseparable from the more-than-human world we inhabit?
With Joycelyn Longdon, Allan Frater, Ann Light and Rose Cairns, featuring music from cellist Anna-Helena McLean.
This is a free in-person event.
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Bio:
Jocelyn Longon
Joycelyn Longdon is an award-winning researcher and writer, bridging the worlds of ecology, technology and environmental justice. Her doctoral research at the University of Cambridge investigated the sociotechnical implications and design opportunities that emerge from participatory ecoacoustic research with marginalised communities, and developed methods for the justice-oriented design and deployment of conservation technologies more broadly.
Allan Frater
Allan Frater is a psychotherapist, teacher and author based in London. He teaches at the Psychosynthesis Trust where his specialist themes are ecopsychology and imagination. His book Waking Dreams: Imagination in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life (2021) draws on his long-term research interest in the creative and healing possibilities of imagination, taking perspectives from transpersonal psychology, ecotherapy, complexity theory and fractal geometry to develop new possibilities within waking dream practice , also known as active imagination and guided imagery. The book challenges the assumption that imagination is merely "inner," offering instead a broad understanding of imagination as present in all perceptions, actions and relationships. He runs workshops and courses on wild imagination through his practice at wildimagination.uk
Ann Light
Ann Light is an interaction theorist and professor of design working at University of Sussex, UK, and Malmo University, Sweden. Trained in drama, interaction design, computer science and AI, her current research explores art-based immersive participatory processes, looking at how they can inspire sustainable futures through cultural change.
Rose Cairns
Rose Cairns is an environmental social scientist at the University of Sussex, where she has just completed a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship exploring the relationship between crisis narratives and the collective imagination. Her background spans academic research, environmental campaigning and participatory practice. She is a trained facilitator of the Work that Reconnects.
Anna-Helena McLean
Anna-Helena McLean is a cellist, composer, theatre-maker, performer-scholar, and communications coach. She is the founder of ACT International, a voice and performance practice based in Northern Italy since 2018. Her work combines music, acting craft, and embodied research in settings ranging from professional development and facilitation to community practice with children and young people with brain injury and PMLD. She is currently completing a practice-as-research PhD at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where she has developed Integrated Physiovocality (IPV), an ethical, voice-led approach to performance and relational practice. Her recent creative work, A Voice Lesson (Reimagined), is a solo performance, participatory event, and lecture exploring voice, listening, imagination, affect, and more-than-human relation through live music, AI-mediated performance, and a contemporary reworking of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. In 2027, the work will travel internationally through workshops, performances, and research events in collaboration with partners including MIT (USA) and Culture Monks (India).