On Thursday 28th September 2017, a range of speakers shared inspiring ideas from across the city and beyond, with short stories and provocations on the theme of Where Should Dundee Be In 2053? We are now making those imaginations of Dundee’s future available for you to watch online!
During the event, at D.C. Thompson, each speaker picked a specific theme and explored it in poetic, curious and scientific ways. Using #Dundee2053 on social media, tell us what is your prediction of Dundee’s future and what we can to bring that about or avoid it.
CULTURE
Kathryn Briggs: Originally from the suburbs of Philadelphia, in 2012 Kathryn moved to Scotland to pursue her Masters and loved it too much to leave. She is an award-winning graphic novelist, combining her classical fine art training with a love of pop culture to create comics which range from slice of life to comparative mythology. She is also an arts educator, teaching in museums, contemporary art centres, higher education and facilitating workshops for charities. Her comics work can be found in Treehouse Comic, Dirty Rotten Comics, Sliced Quarterly, TYCI, Meanwhile…, The Drouth, and released through her own small press, Ess Publications. @withryn
LIVING
Hot Chocolate Trust has been engaging, building relationships, and growing community with young people in Dundee for over fifteen years. They use creative approaches to support young people on their own terms and affect wider change. Hot Chocolate has been described as “strangely educational”, and “one big happy dysfunctional family”. @HotChocoTrust
ENVIRONMENT
Mel Woods is a Reader in Creative Intelligence at the University of Dundee. Her research focuses on supporting people using technology to make sense of data for creativity, action and change-making. She is a lead investigator for projects AHRC Design in Action, H2020 Making Sense and H2020 The GROW Observatory. @i_serena
COMMUNICATION
Sam Gonçalves is the Digital Producer at Creative Dundee where, amongst other things, he has produced the weekly original content that has been released in the last few months. Outside of this role he makes documentaries via film, writing and podcasts. His previous work has been selected for the LUX Scotland archive and received an award by Fife Decorative Arts. The kinds of stories he has worked on have touched on the history and urban development of Dundee, creativity, sailors, mice, Aretha Franklin and Brazil – his home country. @SidlingBears
MONEY
Andrew Staines first came to Dundee 20 years ago from a small village in Norfolk, to study Genetics at Abertay Dundee and then stayed, with a wee sideways move to Perth 10 years ago. Since University he’s been incredibly lucky to work as a futurist (he still can’t believe this sometimes) for a range of organisations including the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scottish Enterprise and in 2013 became the UK Cabinet’s first ever dedicated futurist. Andrew has worked as a jobbing futurist on diverse topics such as demographics, trade, law, climate change and money and has advised amongst others the EU, OECD and various world governments on futures practice and emerging areas of interest. Andrew firmly believes that people, their behaviours and society make the future, not the latest technology trend.
PLAY
Lynn Parker came to Dundee from the West coast of Scotland in 2000 as a student and is happily, still here. She now finds herself as an animation and interactive art lecturer at Abertay University and a practising artist, who produces ‘play interventions’ that aim to bring people together through interactivity, social experiences and playful spaces. She likes to make strange things that are social and playful, whether they be games, events or objects and this is the focus of her PhD which she is undertaking as part of Abertay Game Lab. Most recently she has collaborated on projects including a three-player social play game where players’ don a poncho and hold hands to play a digital game with their bodies, a set of sensing cuffs which can be used by players to imbue inanimate objects with narrative potential and a digital dance system which uses abstraction and sound to encourage players to experiment with different kinds of movement. Lynn is passionate about play and believes we all could benefit from being a little more playful in our everyday lives. She is also a little obsessed with using projectors in her work. @toadrick
LOVE
Siôn Parkinson is an artist and singer. Using multiple voices, he combines choral and a cappella singing with field recordings to create exaggerated characters and environments, often exploring themes of love, loss and bodily intimacy. His recent work, Blind Love Bad Taste (2017), was a series of love songs exploring the complex relationship between an ancient, blind and stinking shark and the two worms that feed from her eyes. As an independent producer, Siôn works with artists and institutions to make experimental music, visual art and contemporary design events in some of the most extraordinary and unusual locations across Scotland. He is currently working with The McManus: Dundee’s Art Galleries and Museum on two important new commissions by artist Duncan Marquiss and musician Jonnie Common to celebrate the museum’s 150th anniversary (Nov 2017). Since 2016, he is the Producer of Dundee Design Festival. @sionparkinson
If you enjoy these conversations that engage creativity alongside current issues, you might like to come along to Make/Share! A monthly event where speakers (makers and doers in Dundee) engage with themes like Brexit, mental health, sustainability, imposter syndrome and more. There’s a Make/Share happening next week!