Imaginator Start - Up
A year ago, through a nomination process, we invited artists to submit two-page solution-proposals, ideas small or large, fanciful or real, in the following areas: the New City, the New Politics, the New Body, the New Mind, and the New World.
In our first year, we incubated eight boundary-pushing artist collaborations. We paired artists with pragmatic problem-solvers: scientists, engineers, ethicists, culture bearers, and technologists. We helped guide their ideas toward progressive stages of realization. Each artist received seed monies to help take their inspiration to the next level.
Then, we showcased prototypes — or near-prototypes — for all seven projects in our Artist As Innovator: Demo Day, a three-day virtual event, October 22–24, 2021. All to show how the imagination can be a lever for global change.
As a cultural incubator and learning organization, Visions2030 supports innovation and collaboration across sectors. Our goal is to remain nimble, anarchistic, and experimental. We are vested in leveraging human creativity by developing sustainable practices.
As we went, we refined our efforts to help develop projects. Collaborative teams presented in-process work to “salons” of invited audiences. They met with us for guidance twice monthly. Now we are preparing for Stage 2 — the accelerator phase — of collaborations. This has been a year of true growth.
Droppin’ Science

NATURESHIP: A New Municipality and A New Human Condition

Team
Nicole Mackinlay Hahn
Artist
Grant Wilson
(Collaborator), Executive Director & Directing Attorney, Earth Law Center; Local Native Knowledge Keepers and the Harlem Community (Stewards and Collaborators)
Synch.Live
Team
Hillary Leone
Artist
Daniel Bor
(Collaborator), Cognitive Neuroscientist, University of Cambridge, UK
Dagmar Divjak
(Collaborator), Cognitive Linguist, University of Birmingham, UK
Working Titles For A New Futurist Cookbook
Seagrass: Revitalizing Our Waterways
Binary Calculations Can Not Assess Us
Team
Stephanie Dinkins
Artist
Surya Mattu
(Collaborator), Artist, Engineer, and Investigative Data Journalist
Datalogue Raisonné™
Ethical Imagination

Collective Dreaming
Local Labs
Inspired creativity belongs to everyone.
The program adapts the principles of the “wild-and-crazy” idea brought into reality (the core of Visions2030). It introduces the power of imagination to underserved populations—at-risk teens, seniors, rural communities, and the incarcerated—to show that everybody is an inventor. We have been partnering with Exalt Youth, a NYC-based initiative for court-involved young people.
Salons
Inspired, thought-provoking, and at times moving conversations before an invited Visions2030 community have included groundbreaking playwright Anna Deavere Smith and Union Theological President Serene Jones discussing art, spirit, and racial justice, and Dr. Jones in conversation with Spiderwoman Theatre found Muriel Miguel on Indigenous Issues, Mortality, and the Miraculous. Visions2030 collaborating teams were featured presenting their projects, topics such as the restaurant of the future and a blockchain app capable of classifying and preserving art, quadratic voting and race-informed ethics of artificial intelligence, the rights of nature; seagrass as a solution to ocean regeneration; STEM pioneers in the Black community; new consciousness; indigenous issues; the future of food.A virtual conference offering a chance to deeply re-imagine what our urban spaces might be – for now, and for the future.
We ask YOU…what is the city you dream of?
Visions2030 dreams forward. We ask not what we’re upset about, but rather what we want to move toward. What new possibilities does this moment offer for true equity, safety, unity, progress.
In collaboration with Union Theological Seminary. Keynote speeches by inspirational civic leaders Energizing examples of models, large and small sparking the imagination and providing solutions.
There will be sessions of scenario planning and “collective dreaming” tackling “The City We All Dream of.”
Using dynamic virtual platforms, the conference will provide narrative experiences to mimic an in-person event, a multiverse of experiences and encounters. The pillars will be five visionary models of cities, planned for Istanbul, Senegal, Malaysia, China. How are these centers grappling with climate change and inequity? More importantly, on a granular level, the conference will present many ingenious models proposed or successfully in existence, community-based, tackling neighborhood equity, police reform, Black and female entrepreneurship, equal access, urban farming – even bicycle storage.
The city, always evolving, is more than a collection of buildings – it’s an architecture of relationships. The conference will address our largest aspirations. It will culminate in next steps: an Open Call for proposals redesigning urban reality, and opportunities for attendees to engage in and support ongoing projects.
Visions2030 is dedicated to harnessing the artistic imagination to creat new paradigms and new models of society. Drawing upon the imagination and experiences of artists in particular, it will reimagine the world we live in.