How might we co-create a vision for the future of Canada’s thriving arts sector through the creation of art? Mass Culture designed a unique game that invited participants of their 2023 Arts Services Organizations (ASO) Convergence Conference to share their individual perspectives on the futures of the sector. The game had participants imagine different elements of a thriving arts sector in 2030 and their responses were used in real-time to create a visual map of the future world. To help create further meaning and understanding about this future vision, Creative Futures designed a maker space workshop from the future. 

Our Approach:

• Creative Futures worked with Mass Culture to understand the design of their game, called Convergence, and support refinement.

• Given that it was unclear how the visual map would take shape throughout the conference, Creative Futures designed an emergent workshop that could easily adapt to the context.

• Creative Futures attended the two-day conference to gain insight into the perspectives of the conference attendees, and to support the refinement of the workshop facilitation.

• On the second day of the conference, Creative Futures facilitated an interactive session. Each participant had an opportunity to make sense of the artwork, and create further meaning through the creation of an artifact from the future, a performance from the future, or a story from the future. These activities made up the 2030 Maker Space.

Results:

Over 25 attendees participated in the session, creating everything from a reverse job interview from the future to a machine that detects (and unblocks) our creativity gene. Through the responses and engagement of the participants in this session, Mass Culture was able to gain insight into the impact of their creative visioning game, to support further refinement in the future.