Demo & Networking: Looking Back to Envision Possible Futures
Rather than treating history as something that simply explains where we come from, we will explore how the past can be mobilised as a resource for imagining alternative, more positive and sustainable futures.
Drawing on the research of Jacob Thorek Jensen, PhD fellow in the Science Communication Research Group at the University of Copenhagen, the session introduces the concept of thinking with history. Here, the past is approached as a generative force – one that can challenge taken-for-granted assumptions and expand what we consider possible.
The meeting will draw on the experimental project What a Wonderful World? at the Danish Museum of Science and Technology, where museum objects were activated as prompts for imagining other possible futures. Rather than representing a fixed past, these objects became tools for reflection, dialogue, and speculation.
Be prepared for a hands-on exercise, where you will try out these ideas in practice, followed by a discussion on how such approaches can be translated into your own research and professional contexts.
The meeting combines a short theoretical introduction with a demo of a new communication format, developed in the research program Sustain-Art-Sci and a help to translate the format into your own practice of science communication, teaching, exhibition work, etc.