This past six months has shown us how much we need each other, how much we need to be creative. It is no longer a luxury but a necessity to imagine new forms, new ideas and a new society. Together with experimentalista Gabriella Gómez-Mont & friends we’ll kick off the WeMakeThe.City digital marathon in search of more inclusive, greener, healthier and happier future!
Imagination is not a luxury anymore
Gabriella Gómez-Mont is the founder and former director of the award-winning Laboratorio para la Ciudad (2013-2018). She is now in the process of launching Experimentalista; a novel type of creative studio specialized in cities, public imagination and system change. Gabriella is also a Yale World Fellow, a TED Senior Fellow, an MIT Director’s Fellow, and has won several international awards and recognitions in different fields – from visual arts to (creative) bureaucracy.
Public Imagination
Teddy Cruz is a professor of Public Culture and Urbanism in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego. He is known internationally for his urban research of the Tijuana/San Diego border, advancing border neighborhoods as sites of cultural production from which to rethink urban policy, affordable housing, and public space.
Fonna Forman is a professor of Political Theory and Founding Director of the Center on Global Justice at the University of California, San Diego. A theorist of ethics and public culture, her work focuses on human rights at the urban scale, climate justice in cities, border ethics, and equitable urbanization in the global south. She is known internationally for her revisionist research on Adam Smith, recuperating the ethical, social, spatial and public dimensions of his thought.
Re-imagining the social
Sarah Schulman is a Founder of InWithForward, and its Social Impact Lead. As a sociologist, Sarah is fascinated by what makes individuals, families, and policymakers tick. She’s worked with federal, regional, and local governments in 6 countries to shift how policies are made and measured. From 2010-2012, Sarah co-ran InWithFor and worked with The Australian Centre for Social Innovation to launch 3 new social solutions including the award-winning Family by Family. From 2008-2009, Sarah was the Youth Project Lead at Participle, one of the first social design shops in the world.
Imagining the urban future
Anab Jain is a designer, futurist, filmmaker and educator. As Co-founder and Director of Superflux, she hopes to realise our vision of the Studio as a new kind of design practice, responsive to the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century. Over the last 15 years, Anab has gained international recognition for her work and commentary on design, innovation, emerging technologies and complex futures. Also, she was appointed as Professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna in 2016, where she leads the Design Investigations (ID2) Program.
Towards a liquid society
Farid Tabarki is a world traveller, self-proclaimed ‘scientist of the present’ and founding director of Studio Zeitgeist, translating changing societal, technological and economic realities into practical advice for organisations and businesses. He is a regular contributor to the Dutch Financial Journal (FD). and author of the book ‘The end of the middle – What a society of extremes means to people, businesses and government’.
