The Collective City

How the future city will be greater than the sum of its parts – one-day exploration of the power of collective consciousness, feeling, intelligence and action…

Through a mixture of talks, discussions and activities, co-create a vision for an urban future that’s more inclusive, equitable and harmonious.

The day will be split into four parts:

CONSCIOUSNESS – Beyond thought and feeling is our collective consciousness. Myths, archetypes and wisdom built up in our cities over centuries and yet still here for us to access and tap in to. What can happen if we do?

This session will be lead by Alex Howard – Founder of Conscious Life.

FEELING – What can we feel together and what does experiencing emotion together enable? Building wellbeing through expressions of joy, connecting with our environment and prioritising human relationships. Featuring contributions from:

• Lynne Segal – Socialist feminist academic, activist and author of Radical Happiness
• Sanderson Jones – Co-founder of Sunday Assembly
• James Turner – Founder of creative collective Glimpse
• Matty Gladstone – Head of Programmes at Help Refugees
• Agamemnon Otero MBE – Founder of Energy Garden and community-owned renewable energy initiative Repowering London.

INTELLIGENCE – What does it mean to design for the collective rather than the individual? Where do humans and machines meet – what is the relationship between AI and CI in our cities? Applying collective intelligence for better design, environment and human rights. We’ll be hearing from:

• Geoff Mulgan – Chief Executive, Nesta
• Liz Corbin – Designer, maker, co-founder of Materiom and contributor to the Fab City Global Initiative
• Grace Annan-Callcott – Projects by IF – a technology studio, specialising in ethical and practical uses of data.
• Cathy Runciman – Atlas of The Future – an online resource of hope that maps innovative and socially-impactful projects in all areas of human activity

ACTION – What change can we achieve together, that can’t be done alone?
We’ll be joined by:

• Charlie Leadbetter – Leading authority on innovation and author of We-Think: The Power of Mass Creativity
• Saba Shafi – Development director of Advocacy Academy – a transformational Social Justice Fellowship for young people
• Sandra Shakespeare – Co-founder, Museum Detox – the BAME network for museum and heritage professionals
• Jamie Ward-Smith – Entrepreneur and social innovator behing Do-it.org and chair of the Co-op foundation, the charity behind the Co-op Group.

We'll end the day with a poetic manifesto for the future city. To guide us through this process of collective expression we'll be joined by:

• Robert Montgomery – an artist and poet who creates text-based installations from light and sometimes fire.
• Bridget Minamore – a poet and freelance journalist who writes about race, class, feminism, and pop culture.
  Followed by drinks…