Dear Subscriber First Name,

In these uncertain times, where everyday feels like what we believed to be preposterous becomes the norm, and a shift in the overton window makes it more possible to imagine the unthinkable; it is important to remain optimistic, without losing sight of reality. As Rob Hopkins reminds us, we need to learn and remember to feed our imaginary libraries with the beautiful futures that are possible, so we can imagine them and bring them into existence. As we prepare to go on our summer breaks, we want to send you off with a reminder that the beautiful futures that we long for are possible. Thank you for believing in us and being part of our community.

This month, we want to remind you of the good, the hopeful and the possible, and inspire you to keep your eyes open for the weak signals that surround you; Whether you go on a summer rest, or have an active summer (regardless remember to rest and enjoy). For this newsletter, we are sharing:

🍊 Our fruit trees: What we learned from our first experiential Futures Prototype: Huone 2050

🌱 Our new shoots: We are working on a Transition Village experiment!

🌰 Sowing seeds: The Futures We Create will come back

🌞 Sunshine: Timely wisdom and support on responding to the challenges of this moment

We see this newsletter as a catalyst for conversations, relationships and collaborations - so we’d love to hear from you! If anything resonates, don’t hesitate to drop us an email at collective@falayconsulting.com

Fruit Trees: What we learned from our first experiential Futures Prototype Huone 2050

Ideas, projects and practices that are active and already fruitful with learnings and impact.

In our last newsletter we shared the dates for Huone 2050, our first Futures Prototyping project and the culmination of our collaboration with the Finnish Expert Panel for Sustainable Development for the Prime Minister’s Office & Demos Helsinki.

Huone 2050 is an experiential exhibition space that includes 14 artefacts from a positive sustainable future, showcasing a narrative of everyday lifestyle of a Finnish family. The room is part of the Panel’s future-oriented work where the aim is to create positive images of futures. With the intention to help various societal actors to imagine and pursue desirable sustainability transformation.

As we close the project, we are taking some much-needed reflection-time to learn about our experience implementing such a project. We have gathered some interesting insights that we take with us for upcoming projects.

1. Positive future images presented in realistic everyday contexts evoke hopefulness and provide potential for behavioral change and agency building for action.

2. Telling the story of positive future images with tactile everyday objects can foster new awareness, by translating the complex systemic transformations into relatable and meaningful lived experience.

3. Emotional and contextual connection can enable more inclusive and democratic participation in the discussion of the characteristics of the future systems.

New shoots: Transition Village Jupperi, a City of Espoo’s Participatory Climate Experiments initiative

Emerging work that’s inspiring us, or that we are beginning to nurture

Back in March, the City of Espoo had an open call for Participatory Climate Experiments (Espoon ilmasto-osallisuuden kokeilut). Our collective members Anni Leppanen and Andrea Gilly had been talking about planting a seed for creating a transition village movement within Jupperi, in Espoo. So this was the perfect opportunity, and to do it with the support of the City of Espoo!
We sent an application and got selected. We are amongst 8 experiments that will be happening around Espoo between June 1st and October 31st 2025. This is an incredible opportunity to learn and do something we have been dreaming of for a long time.


Keep an eye on our blog for reflections, learnings and updates on the experiment!
Learn more about the Espoo City initiative here
Don’t know what a Transition Town is? Learn all about it here

Bonus shoot: Tensions of internal change-makers - innovation labs report underway

Emerging work that’s inspiring us, or that we are beginning to nurture

Our collective core member Anni Leppänen is writing an article about public sector innovation labs in Finland during 2015-2025. The article was commissioned by Sitra, Finnish Innovation Fund. In her article, Anni is reflecting her own experiences in two innovation labs: D9 team in State Treasury and Helsinki Lab at City of Helsinki. In addition, Anni has interviewed 6 other innovation labs that have operated during the time period in Finnish government. Anni is especially interested in the various tensions that internal change-makers are experiencing in their daily work. Anni is also looking into issues such as internal roles, mandate and missions, as well as timelines and phases of innovation labs. The aim of the report is to explore the impact of labs and what practices should be scaled and what new approaches might be called for during this time of complex systems change and urgency of the polycrisis.

If you want to know more about our work with innovations labs, contact Anni.

Sowing seeds: The Futures We Create will be part of the Future Stories Art Mobs in Espoo!

If you have been following our work, you might have read about a project our team members Andrea Gilly, Savannah Vize and Sara D’Angelo have been working on: The Futures We Create- a participatory workshop-like process in which we invite participants to think about the futures we long for. Andrea, Savannah and Sara have created a space for deep reflection, emotional processing in community, somatic longing and collective imagination, and are very excited to bring it back to new audiences. If you are interested, keep an eye on the Stories Art Mobs program in Espoo, launched in September. 

Follow The Futures We Create on instagram to keep up with what we do

Learn more about the Future Stories Art Mobs 2025

We are still seeking other sources of funding. Are you aware of resources or funds that could support us to advance this important work and new UK partnership?

Sunshine: Rob Hopkins has released a new book! And here’s a podcast where you can hear all about it!

If you have not noticed yet, we are huge fans of Rob Hopkins, and his work has been hugely inspiring and instrumental to our collective. Which is why, we are super excited to share that his new book has been published: How to Fall In Love With the Future. If you are not convinced, here is a very good podcast where Rob talks about his work and what led him to write this book. I know I am super excited about this and can’t wait to have this book in my hands.

I think Rob’s work is especially important in the moments where it is hard to find hope, to be reminded that the future is created by all of us, and that we need to surround ourselves with stories of the possible, to keep our minds alive and allow ourselves to imagine what a beautiful future could look like. Because pockets of those futures do exist today, and it is up to us to nurture the positive things we want (and need) to see in the world. I hope you find it inspiring, and that you take this summer as an opportunity to find those pockets that surround you.

Wishing you a lovely summer (and wishing for an end to the Genocide in Gaza)

Warmly
Andrea and the Falay Collective

One more thing!
We have Transition Design Trainings over the summer, if you are looking to expand your knowledge, join a training!

Let’s build a better future together.