“We need to cultivate as a society, our collective imagination. That needs to be our priority.” Rob Hopkins
E134 – Rob Hopkins on COLLECTIVE IMAGINATION, PLAY CULTURE AND FUTURE MAPPING
NEW MEMORIES FOR THE FUTURE
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About this interview:
How do we unfold future culture from our imagination?
“We need to cultivate as a society, our collective imagination. That needs to be our priority.”
In this episode Amisha speaks with Rob Hopkins, an environmental activist and writer. Rob is the founder of Transition movement, cofounder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network. He has written 6 books on environmentalism and activism, and was voted one of the Independent’s top 100 environmentalists. His podcast ‘From What If, To What Next’ explores how we can make our future visions reality. He is a director of Totnes Community Development Society, the group behind Atmos Totnes, an ambitious, community-led development project.
Amisha and Rob explore the power of our imagination and spaces that allow us to vision the future. They reveal that we live in a survival mode culture designing imagination out of our lives causing its mass loss and collective fear of imagining the future in hopeful and positive ways.
Rob shares powerful examples from his latest book of how communities can de-activate this destructive way of being and step back into collective imagination. He talks about his work with Transition movement in Transition Towns, such as Totness, where communities are reimagining and rebuilding their world; setting examples of how we can imagine and build a new culture and tell a new story of positivity and hope for the future.
We learn that in order to re-map our dysfunctional societies we need to re-activate our collective imagination. We need to give people a taste of a different future and spaces for exploring possibility. We need to re-imagine our relationship with technology, spend time in nature and with practices for quieting our minds, carve intentional time to be creative, to play and tell stories. The North Stars of our future are shining in the fine details we observe and in the ways we intertwine these.
“Creating new North Stars allows you to get into creating memories of the future.” Rob Hopkins
Rob Hopkins is a cofounder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network, and the author of ‘The Transition Handbook’, ‘The Transition Companion’, ‘The Power of Just Doing Stuff’, ‘21 Stories of Transition’ and most recently, ‘From What Is to What If: unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want’. He presents the podcast series ‘From What If to What Next‘ which invites listeners to send in their “what if” questions and then explores how to make them a reality. In 2012, he was voted one of the Independent’s top 100 environmentalists and was on Nesta and the Observer’s list of Britain’s 50 New Radicals. Hopkins has also appeared on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Four Thought’ and ‘A Good Read’, in the French film phenomenon ‘Demain’ and its sequel ‘Apres Demain’, and has spoken at TEDGlobal and three TEDx events.
An Ashoka Fellow, Hopkins also holds a doctorate degree from the University of Plymouth and has received two honorary doctorates from the University of the West of England and the University of Namur. He is a keen gardener, a founder of New Lion Brewery in Totnes, the UK’s first 100% community-owned brewery, and of Totnes Community Development Society.
To connect or work with Rob, visit robhopkins.net
To connect or work with Amisha, visit amisha.co.uk
Links from this episode:
‘From What If to What Next‘ podcast
‘From What If to What Next’ book
‘The Transition Handbook’ book
‘The Transition Companion’ book
‘The Power of Just Doing Stuff’ book
’21 Stories of Transition’ book
Michael Mann . climate scientist
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