The Tomorrow Party

Creating more equitable futures requires radical new ways of imagining possibility that are as much felt as they are strategically planned. We cannot build more just futures using the same building blocks that created our worlds today. We also cannot design more equitable tomorrows without creative methods that invite attuning to imaginative, cultural and embodied ways of knowing and being. Current approaches to current inequities based on foresight or prediction can suffer from a lack of hope and imagination.

The Tomorrow Party engages with guests’ hopes and dreams, not just past experiences. It playfully engages with the future’s complexity and uncertainty to build better imaginative capacities. Piloted across multiple professional and cultural contexts, the two-hour party invites guests to imagine themselves in the near future. Time travel generates first-hand experiential insights and builds participants’ abilities to collectively imagine more equitable futures. Its basis in speculative and convivial first-person conversation forges coalitions that help mobilise partners and inspire positive outcomes for the people at the centre of the specific project context.

In the face of serious global challenges, the Tomorrow Party addresses the widespread need for a more creative, experiential, reciprocal and hopeful stance in design research methods for imagining possible futures. More than 500 people have attended Tomorrow Parties in seven countries, and reported feeling more connected, agential and energised about the future. The demand is clear - the team was invited to host two Tomorrow Parties at COP28, another at the Design Museum’s Policy Festival (2024), and at UN Climate Week. This success demonstrates the value of the research aims - to research experiential insight into how better futures might feel.

Party Structure: Typically a 2-3 hour gathering unfolds over three acts to help people imagine into the near future how they personally hope to be living, working and thriving. Tailored for the specific party objectives, context, and stakeholders, Act 1 sets the scene, Act 2 is about time travelling and Act 3 shares the tomorrow stories co-created. Project Commitments: Informed by Indigenous conceptions of time, the first-hand experience to travel forth in time, intentionally embraces the value of learning about the past and present by imagining with the future. The Party design and atmosphere is grounded by Indigenous principles of relationality, respect and reciprocity. Contribution to Design Research: - Ethical practice for engaging with peoples’ life experiences and imaginations. - Tomorrow Story insights documented to understand participants’ new visions and insights. - Rapid rapport building in support of hope and planning for collective action. - Creative and participant-led approach to understanding and building on lived experiences. Early pilots helped refine a party where diverse voices are respected, deep connection is valued and a level of trust is essential. Staying with the party theme helped the team lean into the role of hosts — attending to how the gathering supported a convivial, care-based, creative atmosphere.