Many of you may have noticed that I have been quieter than usual over the last month. Last month, I lost somebody incredibly important to me. This is my grandmother, Chloë Gunn, the mother and now ancestor of my father’s line, and in many ways the central matriarch of my family.
Read MoreThis article was written together with Nick Kimber, the Director of Strategy and Design at Camden Council. It was originally posted on the London Office for Technology and Innovation website here. It talks about how imagination has been integrated into policy, design and strategy at Camden Council through two years of working together with Moral Imaginations, to build this capacity from within the council and to share with the local residents.
Read MoreJoin me next Wednesday 12th April (7pm UK / 8pm CEST) for this event where I’ll speak with Iain McGilchrist on the topics of imagination, transrationality and the remaking of our world. You can find all the details below and sign up using this link. From Perspectiva: “We are pleased to announce the next event in our free online seminar series Attention as a Moral Act - Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Phoebe Tickell on Wednesday 12th April (7pm UK / 8pm CEST / 2pm EST / 11am PST)”
Read MoreReflections on mould, breaking the mould, moulding something into shape, leaf mould and being moulded.
Read MoreArticle written by the team at Sociale Innovatie Fabriek and published on their website.
Presentation at the Sociale Innovatie Fabriek Annual Congress
03/10/2022
On October 21st, imagination activist Phoebe Tickell kicks off our System Shakers networking conference with a dazzling keynote on the power of imagination. Because by combining visualisation, science and art, we can help people take action. In this interview, the British-Hungarian scientist gives us a foretaste.
Hungarian/English scientist and social entrepreneur.
Graduated magna cum laude in Biological Natural Sciences from Cambridge University.
Worked at The National Lottery Community Fund of Great Britain until 2021.
As the founder of Moral Imaginations , she works with leaders, organisations, boards, communities and think tanks to drive change.
Keynote speaker at our network conference System Shakers on October 21, 2022.
The world is on fire, literally and figuratively. In addition to forest fires that flare up due to global warming, hot spots are popping up everywhere in our society. Poverty, childcare, waste, mobility, inclusion, mental well-being... we face a huge mountain of problems to solve. According to Phoebe Tickell, it can. But then we first have to change our mentality around those themes. We spoke to her via Zoom about the keynote she will give during System Shakers .
You believe that we can find solutions to difficult themes thanks to imagination. Explain.
“The way in which we have been organizing our lives, learning and work for decades, the way in which we organize our society, that no longer seems to work well today. As a result, we are gradually reaching a state of impasse. The good news is that together we can create a new reality. But then we have to dare to use our imagination. Imagination really is a superpower. It's available to anyone, anytime, anywhere."
What does an imagination activist like you do?
"I use playful methods to help people see the world in different ways, and that a different world is possible. Only when someone dares to look beyond what they already know, will they be able to change their perspective. And adjust their behaviour where necessary. Only we have forgotten how to think outside the box, for fear of doing something wrong or not according to the 'imposed norm'. Industrialsation had a devastating effect on our creativity. We have become obsessed with efficiency and replicability, which is at odds with craft and genuine creation. Our school system also pushes creativity out of children. And then suddenly they are adults. I see a big link to the mental health problem we face today. A 1-size-fits-all model is not humane. It creates a colonial system where most people people are excluded or “don’t fit the mould”."
Does the place where you grow up affect your creativity?
"I think so. As a child I lived in Hungary, in a slightly poorer and more austere region. I spent the other half of my life in well-developed London, where everything is neatly arranged. The difference in imagination between the inhabitants is very striking. In Hungary I felt much more warmth, togetherness and creativity. When people have less, they share more with each other and look for ways to make their lives easier. Automatically they also use their hands more. So modernisation makes us sure no more creative."
Does the government play a role in this?
"In any case, I notice a big difference between Europe and, say, South America, where there are often more links between politics and art. In Europe there is little room for deep and radical creativity. That is largely reserved for people who are paid to work in fantasy, like filmmakers or authors. Too bad, because the kind of thinking we need on a large scale to get out of our complex problems is not accessible to most people. Everyone is required to have daring, cooperation, courage, creativity and imagination, but it is not recognised that it takes time, space and practice. Imagination does not come by itself."
Visualisation of a lab in British Watchet, by Moral Imaginations artist Reilly.
How did you see the results of your work yourself?
"In the group sessions with the Moral Imaginations Lab, we use multimedia experience, sound and live artwork to tap into imagination. Last year we did a four-day journey with residents from Watchet, who all had certain issues. When I asked the group after a few years back, many of them had really changed. One person was even elected to local politics. We didn't tell them what to do to get on with their lives, but we did open the door to their imagination. Then suddenly there was a lot possible."
What do you hope the audience will take home from your keynote?
"I would love it if everyone thought about the question 'What do I need to get my imagination flowing?' That can be anything, but it can have fantastic consequences for the rest of your life or project."
The term 'degrowth' is uninspiring because it uses a negative definition not a positive one. It is very hard to be inspired by a negative. Imagine if we framed weekends as 'not-working time'. Also: growth is not bad. Unchecked exponential growth is. See: growing a limb vs cancer.
I met with an Oxford Professor of Character Virtue recently, who turned out to have done a PhD in Hope. We spoke about his work developing programmes for 18-19 year olds at Oxford University in character development, building on his research of what does this effectively. Things like "virtue literacy", expanding moral vocabulary, considering hope, exploring gratitude - and how that's different in different contexts and cultures around the world, and then the most interesting one - friendship. We spoke about the crisis of friendship - of building relationships where people are deeply invested in each other's journey and learning. We finished by speaking about moral imagination and the exercises using imagination to build a deep connection with oneself, ecology and future generations and ancestors.
He offered: "imagine if all undergraduates started their 3 year undergraduate degree with a collective exercise in moral imagination. Rather than a fresher's week, or induction into 'how things are done around here', what if there was the chance to deeply imagine your path and purpose and reason for being at Oxford. That really stuck with me. I was so sad about the state of affairs at the world's best universities when I studied at Cambridge. It was devoid of that deeper thinking and wisdom and consideration that I had been expecting. It felt like there were echoes of where that might have, maybe, once been(?), but overall I'm not sure - all I found was a lot of very male dominated academia, posturing in gowns, and competitive ambition towards achieving the highest grades. There were moment of deep learning - and my Natural Sciences degree was like a Hogwarts degree in the atomic, molecular, cellular and ecological world - and in there I found what is sacred - but you had to dig for it yourself, and seek it out - it was not encouraged or scaffolded.
I feel breathless when I imagine what the world could look like if we designed and structured university education to support the flourishing, integration, connection and building of wisdom, of the next generation. Anyone who is involved in such work, please keep me in mind - I would love to be in the loop and develop work in this area.
I refuse to do what is expected
I vow to do what is beautiful and true
June 2022
The internet is an amazing place - especially when it allows you to discover past versions of yourself stored away and hidden in unexpected corners.
It’s been fascinating to start being able to compare past versions of myself, my thinking and the way I described what I was doing, and see the links and growth from that version to who I am now.
Today I went to About Me to make a biography to include in my email signature. And I discovered I already had such a page, 7 years old! I wanted to capture the words like a snapshot so they wouldn’t be lost, and I could compare again in 7 years. Here is my 2015 biography:
Phoebe is a learner, educator, change-maker, explorer and futurist.
Trained as a scientist in Neuroscience, DNA and synthetic biology, she started life on an interesting footing. Science gives a lens through which to view the world: one which detects patterns, interconnection, and seeks truth.
On exiting our society’s rigid education system, she sought out an upgrade in consciousness. A combination of solitude, intense physical training, and meditative practice made her realise she would be spending her life serving the world using her specific combination of gifts - and that others can do the same.
At first this was in the confines of the old system. Reprogramming life (by genetic engineering) to build living solutions to the world’s energy crisis and organising climate activism seemed like a good place to start. Communicating science and spreading wonder through workshops, exhibitions and articles have allowed her to inspire and excite others and develop into a full-blown wonder junkie.
However, what dawns on her is that we currently already have all of the technology, scientific knowledge, materials, and time to build an astonishing and abundant world capable of meeting all of our needs. In fact, the most valuable, untapped resource today is human ingenuity, creativity, or ‘magic'.
How do we unlock human magic? One place to start is the way we do education and build communities. Give people the tools to continue learning and exploring for the rest of their lives. Re-imagining what and how we learn is one crucial part of transitioning into a new era. Experimenting with content and learning techniques in Brainiac Club (www.brianaic.clun) 225 Academy (www.225academy.com) and bringing together co-ordinated action via Born Limitless (www.bornlimitless.org) are the ways she is currently doing this.
The really fascinating part is how much has stayed consistent, though the language I use to describe it is very different and the audiences and communities I am part of have also changed. I was starting to formalise the meta-curriculum I had created for age 11-18 year olds based on what I had learned from the biological sciences and applied to social systems and “thinking”. I taught this as “Magical Thinking” at 225 Academy, which has now been upgraded to be called “Systems Thinking” and “Complexity”.
You can find hints of Moral Imaginations in there, especially on science as a lens through which to view the world: one which detects patterns, interconnection, and seeks truth, and being what I called a “wonder-junkie”. In fact, I may actually just keep these sentences for the sake of continuity:
Communicating science and spreading wonder through workshops, exhibitions and articles have allowed her to inspire and excite others and develop into a full-blown wonder junkie.
However, what dawns on her is that we currently already have all of the technology, scientific knowledge, materials, and time to build an astonishing and abundant world capable of meeting all of our needs. In fact, the most valuable, untapped resource today is human ingenuity, creativity, or ‘magic'.
How do we unlock human magic?
Ok, maybe not the sentence about the wonder junkie.
But the rest perfectly sets up what I am about to be doing again - watch this space!
Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία [eu̯dai̯moníaː]; sometimes anglicized as eudaemonia or eudemonia, /juːdɪˈmoʊniə/) is a Greek word literally translating to the state or condition of 'good spirit', and which is commonly translated as 'happiness' or 'welfare'.
In the works of Aristotle, eudaimonia was the term for the highest human good in older Greek tradition. It is the aim of practical philosophy, including ethics and political philosophy, to consider as well as experience what it really is, and how it can be achieved. It is thus a central concept in Aristotelian ethics and subsequent Hellenistic philosophy, along with the terms aretē (most often translated as 'virtue' or 'excellence') and phronesis" ('practical or ethical wisdom').
Discussion of the links between ēthikē aretē (virtue of character) and eudaimonia (happiness) is one of the central concerns of ancient ethics, and a subject of much disagreement. As a result, there are many varieties of eudaimonism.
The wind at dawn has secrets to whisper
Don’t go back to sleep!
— Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
I’ve been thinking about this at the moment: all's fair in love and war. The phrase 'all's fair in love and war' is used to describe a situation in which people do not follow the usual rules of behaviour and do things that are normally considered unfair. It's a proverb attributed to John Lyly's Euphues, a didactic romance written in 1578. I recently re-membered that phrase and have been considering it in light of all I have been experiencing in my life.
Anything goes in the world of business. No wonder the world of business runs largely on IP and laws. Hard boundaries that try and protect things because 'all's fair in love and war'. If you're operating in an environment where it's fair to steal, cheat and lie, then of course it's a war - it's about winning, and ultimately it's a game where the rules are that there are no rules - not around things like kindness and fairness and trust. It's very radical to be doing business based on trusting relationships. And it's risky. How do you know the other person/organisation won't defect?
Thinking about this and conversations with Daniel Schmachtenberger about perverse incentives and prisoner's dilemmas. I love our conversations because we both seem to take the same perspective: not one that villain-ises the people, nor pities them, but comes from the deepest place of empathy we are capable of: knowing deeply the incentives and dynamics that create the constraints that result in such emergent property behaviours.
Also thinking about this in context of my conversations with Nora Bateson and about the system that exists to protect itself. Nora's words: "We have to move the ships across the world because people need to make money. We have to destroy the rainforest because people need to make money."
So what about love? Same again... In romance there is also the territory where normal behaviours go out the window. What is the equivalent of professionalism in romance? Not the meaning of professionalism meaning a clean veneer and fake niceness that creates coldness, but professionalism meaning manners, courtesy and a deep respect of another human no matter what.
I think there's a case to be made to bring back manners. And that in the realms of love and war: both, in a sense, some of the closest we have as humans to life-and-death situations, that if we are playing with people's hearts, livelihoods and lives, that we show up in doing so with the utmost respect - sourcing from a respect not just for their humanity, but all life.
Life is about cooperation… Life is about networking… Although we’ve been led to believe that it’s about competition. This is a guided imagination journey that is part of the Moral Imaginations project. Get comfortable, close your eyes, and be transported to a place beyond space and time. It’s an 8 minute guided journey into discovering the deep sense of interdependence with the natural world.
I am sitting and reflecting on the first full day of Moral Imaginations with the community of Watchet. It’s been so moving to be with this community, I was hosting them but in reality they were hosting me. The depth of empathy, creativity, imagination and ability to hold complexity and weave pain into beauty was awe inspiring.
Today we worked with the metaphor of the Impossible Train (https://phoebetickell.medium.com/covid-19-the-story-of-the-impossible-train-illustrated-version-c2c127978331) - moving through the steps of “warming up” the imagination and creating a space that welcomes true improvisation. Some of what came up in response to the train was shock, some of it was sadness, some of it was utterly beautiful and some of it was anger. One participant said “When I hear that story I feel angry - I’m not glad the train has stopped, I’m angry it went on for as long as it did. In fact I’m not imagining myself as a character getting off the train, I’m probably the one that started the fire”.
While we are working together and entering these deep imaginative realms, we are accompanied by music:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4uwhEB0K4gtoWGSAqxkV55
And resident Moral Imaginations artist Reilly is creating as we go:
As part of this yesterday we started by speaking about the economy, and how it could be different, and it was a conversation that just spilled and unfolded into the space, not forced or facilitated by continuing from a space and permission to speak the truth and to speak vulnerably - and our discussion on Wednesday of the how life could be different had seeded thoughts and ideas and questions in all of our minds.
Two younger participants spoke about their imagining of a ‘currency of kindness’ that was focused on giving and not hoarding. Another Watcheter spoke of money being like manure: “making a stinking heap when it’s all piled up, but spread out everywhere, it makes a fertile compost that can help a garden grow”.
Moral Imaginations Labs often end up in everyone using deeply ecological metaphors. What would an economy of Ecology look like? Another metaphor that emerged was the metaphor of the river, of a river that could gather momentum and flow and force and wash away the old ways of doing things - even the ‘sticks in the mud’ that would sometimes hold on very strongly to old, stubborn ways. Reilly again did the image we created together very good justice:
I feel lucky to have the opportunity to be with the community of Watchet and honoured to go through this process of deep imagining and sharing a powerful journey. Someone commented that we went from people shedding a tear, touching the sense of something lost, of belonging, of longing for belonging, and then to acting out sketches and skits, roleplay and a sense of lightness and humour, and forgetting the worries of the world.
The whole Moral Imaginations crew, me included, are deeply taken by Watchet and its lovely community. Awe-struck and awe inspired. Tomorrow is a big day as we move into the “More-than-human” day of the process, and by the end of tomorrow we’ll almost be all the way through the Lab! And then comes the job of writing up and transcribing and editing all of the creative co-created material that has been developed by community members in this short but intensive time.
Thank you to Onion Collective and Watchet and Power to Change for making this work possible.
Suspended in time. She was reading another one of those Medium articles that pop up on the radar, something about futures and systems change. “What a juicy combination of topics”, she thought to herself. “Maybe this time I’m going to come across something I haven’t seen before”.
She paused, realising she had been reading and re-reading the same sentence over and over. Her mind was wandering, and she couldn’t catch enough of it to focus on the actually meaning of the sentence. She read it again.
Read MoreI think this is the last summer holiday we're ever going to get. This is not a joke, and I don't think it's too extreme - it's actually a very privileged statement because most of the world is never really able to get a summer holiday anyway. But if you're able to have one - go out and do it, enjoy it, suck in all the moisture from the soil through your roots. I genuinely don't think summer holidays will be possible in the same way ever again. Enjoy it in the way you would enjoy a last dance on a sinking ship... And do what you need to feel ready for this next chapter in the book of being a human alive in this time of the 21st century.
There’s a part of me that I’ve noticed feels uncomfortable when I have visited California in the past about the abundance that is available to you if you have access to money. Like there’s a voice in my head that says “am I really allowed almond butter with chia seeds and maple syrup crunchies as an everyday item?! Why? Surely this is unnecessary?” And then a kind of childish candystore feeling too, but it feels tacky, like candy floss.
At first I characterised this as the part of me that is Puritan from English history, but I’ve realised I mischaracterised that. It’s the part of me that is Hungarian and was raised by Hungarian villagers. We have a culture of only cooking and buying what is enough, and a bit more. The culture of “treats” is very strong. E.g. my grandfather would bring home raspberries and it was a “treat” that we would get excited about and savour every last bit. My grandmother would bake amazing home made cakes using very simple ingredients, and it would take her the whole afternoon, and we would beg her not to because we were worried we’d become fat over summer, and we didn’t want her to be manually toiling to make us treats, but my gosh were they amazing.
And there’s something about that, that leaves an actual sense of guilt and wrongness at the more extreme end of the spectrum of consumerism and “abundance”. And I’m actually questioning if that’s a bad thing at all.
I miss my grandma.
A couple of years ago I dreamed vividly of being visited by 'Future Ones'. They showed up in my dream as ethereal beings, of a generation yet unborn, asking for help and the help of others alive in this time, and agitated about their right to existence.
Ever since that dream, I have felt a strong sense of being in service of those beings. I feel like they're watching us now. That was one of two dreams that will stick with me forever.
Humans are not just biology. People asking for the “end of lockdown” so “nature can just run its course”. There is open discourse going on about “the virus culling the weak and elderly”..
Who are the weak in this society? Are there not racial and other discriminatory lines along that distinction? Who has our society already failed in looking after and keeping healthy? If “we are just biology” does that justify decades of colonisation, genocide of entire peoples and cultures, wars, destruction?
I feel like I just saw a different perspective on political views: “humans as biology” vs. “humans as society”.
Margaret Thatcher once said in 1987, “There is no such thing as society.” Interestingly almost 30 years later, her predecessor Boris Johnson makes a statement after being saved by the NHS that “there really is such a thing as society”. If there is no such thing as society, then what is the NHS? Who are the 750,000 members of the public who have volunteered to aid the health service in Covid-19 times?
Something tells me that a very core part of the debate on how we run our world sits with this question. Are humans just biology, or are they society?
