I was lucky enough to be invited to run a workshop with a group of emerging creative entrepreneurs through PDR/Media Cymru. I was asked to focus on collaboration, and what better way to encourage diverse creatives to work together than to get them speculating about – and creating – the future of sleep?
I open up the idea of sleep justice by asking participants if they felt they were getting enough sleep and if not (the answer is usually ‘not’) why not. After a long and fascinating discussion, I introduced my version of Situation Lab’s game The Thing from the Future.
In small groups, participants were given a work sheet and two prompt cards, one labelled Futures, which specified a particular kind of future (Green, Feminist, etc) and the other labelled Things (these could be concrete or abstract: Building, Food, Tradition, etc). Combining the prompts led to sentences such as: In a Dystopian future there is a Clothing Item related to Sleep; or In a Queer future there is a Holiday related to Sleep. Each group had to write a narrative or scenario setting out this future and the role of the sleep-related Thing. They then prototyped their concepts using craft items and old magazines and presented them to the group.
Some photos from the day taken by the wonderfully talented Alex Segmond.
Me presenting.
Participants working on their future sleep designs.
Presenting their concepts to the group.