Introducing Imaginationscapes

The audacity to design the most abundant future our imagination can dream up.

Recently I’ve been venturing down a really rather excellent rabbit hole. It’s been a foray into combining my love of designing and drawing by hand with my need to visualise ‘the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible’ to quote the brilliant thinker, Charles Eisenstein.

I’ve been dreaming up (and drawing up) what I’m calling Imaginationscapes.

Imaginationscape is a portmanteau that combines imagination and landscape - it plays with the idea that we can design the future we want, and it all starts with imagination.

We are all designers

I think we often feel powerless when we compare the future we want to see, with the status quo. It feels pretty insurmountable.

I’m a bit suspicious that we are made to feel like this so we’ll keep our heads down and carry on with capitalism’s never-ending to-do list.

But when I put my designer hat on, I realise that every human-made thing and system in the world was designed by someone or a team of someones. Like, I mean… everything! And before pen was put to paper the idea began in someone’s imagination.

What’s cool is that it’s not just designers who get given an imagination - nope. Everyone gets one. How great is that?

We all have the power to imagine and design the future we want to see.

What is an Imaginationscape?

I start these drawings with a theme in mind, maybe a bountiful backyard or a whole community. Then I choose something to be at the heart of the drawing - something meaningful to the theme, perhaps a community hub building, or the front verandah of a home.

From there, I have been cramming in as much abundance as I can to create a circle full of inspiring elements I want to see in the future. I’ve loved adding rows of sunflowers, rainbows to signify inclusivity, chickens, gardens, bee hives and I’ve been sticking in trees anywhere I can.

The drawings have a distinct permaculture or landscape design flavour. It’s a style of illustration that loosely uses architectural drawing standards, but is used in a way that plays with scale, mixes up plan views with elevations, and has no real-world constraints like access or a north point.

There is also no budget for these imaginary landscapes, no council applications, nor are there opinionated neighbours who’d prefer the chemical-drenched manicured lawns of the past. None of that.

Letting go of these constraints makes the drawing brim with possibility - they feel like the first step towards actualising a pretty bloody amazing future, where yards and communities are an vital element in the wider ecosystem, and provide food, joy, and awe to everyone in the vicinity.

Works in progress

I’ve just finished a community-themed A2 Imaginationscape** and a very sweet A4 utopian urban backyard.

In the pipeline are a couple of medium-size ones on radical renting and an inner-city permie haven. I’m also hoping to make a larger one that will encapsulate the permaculture dream: off-grid living, abundant food forest, goats, n’ all.

**An immense thank you to my Instagram-chums who pitched in ideas for the big community Imaginationscape, photo above. It was a beautifully collaborative experience. I’m hoping to speak more in detail about this one soon.

Shall I sell prints and commissions?

I’d love to offer these on my webshop at some point, maybe I’ll do a winter shop launch because I have a few other things in the wings that I’d love to stick up there too.

I’m working towards offering the Imaginationscapes I’ve done so far as fine art prints, and a few spots for commission. I think it would be so fantastic to work with people on their specific dreams for the future.

It’s pretty crazy, the idea of putting art online for sale. I’m so used to being commissioned for photography and writing projects, so this is a whole new world for me.

Leave a ‘hoorah’ in the comments below or by replying to this email if that’s how you’re reading this - I’m taking any and all encouragement to put my work out in the world - I always appreciate your cheerleading, it really makes a difference to me.

An Imagination Manifesto

There’s loads of work happening across the planet in the imagination space. One rockstar of imagination, Rob Hopkins, recently released a poignant document called Ministry of Imagination: An Imagination-based Manifesto for times that need one.

You can access a free copy here. Send it to all the policy- and decision-makers you know.

It’s an abundant collection of ideas or policies for a better future. Each policy was harvested from guests of his podcast: From What If to What Next.

They (the podacst guests) were encouraged to choose policies that were bold, audacious, ambitious and beautiful.

The ideas are grouped under themes such as arts, cities, fashion, education, energy, justice, rituals, ecology, and food and farming - there’s something in there to tickle anyone's imagination into gear.

Righto - I’ve gotta get onto drawing my next Imaginationscape, it’ll be for the radical renters among us. Woo!

Keep your ear to the ground for a webshop announcement. How exciting.

I hope your imagination feels empowered for the rest of the day.