Driven by the speed, scope and scale of contemporary societal phenomena, the present in which we live and work is characterised by changing conditions of change. The world, marked by diversity, is ever more complex, contradictory and even chaotic. Designing in such an uncertain and often confusing environment, cannot be based on linear or reductionist approaches that separate the whole of its parts. Rather, it requires holding multiple possibilities and working fruitfully with difference. Futures Literacy bundles the capabilities needed to do so.
In this hands-on futures literacy lab, you will explore the futures of diversity. We will reveal some of the implicit assumptions that guide our approaches to what is not yet, making space for new ones to emerge. We will diversify the ways we use the future to open up new options for creation and action today, and for transformative design practices.

For who

Systems- and service designers, creatives, product developers, strategists, innovators, policymakers. Anyone designing for complex systems or diverse communities. Those seeking transformation beyond innovation. No prior experience in futures work is required — just curiosity and a willingness to challenge how you think about the future.

Key takeaways

• Practices of futures literacy to work with diversity in all its forms

• Revealed and renewed the assumptions behind your anticipatory thinking to spark fresh ideas Inspiration on design for novelty and difference in complex, changing contexts

• Practical tools to expand your anticipatory repertoire and open new pathways for action.

This interactive session invites critical reflection on Barcelona Design Week’s binding theme of Creative Resilience. The aim is to formulate three big groups of questions that are key for the design process that engages resilience. In many design settings, resilience is cast by default as a desirable specification. In the practice of service design, resilience is often used as a measure of success. We keep using that words ‘resilience' but does it really mean what we think it means?

BDW’s curator Alessandro Manetti, designer, artist and activist Mushon Zer-Aviv, and critical futures scholar Maya Van Leemput take a step back to ask what needs to be resilient? What does not? What threats do we see that resilience might be measured against? And what images of the future do we measure against? Plain and simple, what do you want to see in the future and what not? What might break and what not? And what is worth salvaging from the present?

You, the audience, will be asked to actively think with the panel throughout the conversation. Together we list the questions that matter.