"Things aren't getting worse, they're being uncovered... We have a crisis of attention, not imagination". John Thackera on urgencies of our time

We love the work and thought of eco-designer John Thackera at A/UK. This is from the Karlsruhe’s Driving the Human project - a very intense exploration into the art of the anthropocene, with some eye-popping prototypes on display, exploring

the connections between technology and nature, artificial intelligence, circular economy, new modes of knowledge exchange and production, indigenous knowledge, and more-than-human perspectives from the bacterial to the interplanetary. Overall, they reinforce the importance of collaboration and interdependency as essential factors for survival.

Above in the YouTube embed, John answers with great clarity some urgent questions (the timings below take you to each question in the video above):

0.09 - What are the urgencies of our time?

Extract from reply: “Maybe things aren’t getting worse in the world - maybe they’re just being uncovered. The things that appear to us as a crisis at the moment are phenomena that were always there”

3.01 - We are experiencing a profound crisis of imagination. Is it possible to change pace and direction? Can we find alternative models and possibilities?

Extract from reply: “I don’t think we have a crisis of imagination - but a crisis of attention and distraction… Our anxiety comes from being too distracted to be able to see these pockets of light and alternatives around us… Look at the edge of our pictures of crisis, for these small islands of coherence (Prigogine). Make them your starting point.

7.02 - How can we connect urban and rural ecosystems in order to form new communities? What do these communities look like?

Extract from reply: “I think we have a convergence of these small islands of coherence, the social infrastructure to enable those islands to connect with each other, and the governance and legal systems - including rights to non-humans - that gives the whole thing dynamism and momentum.

More from John Thackera on this site here.