This three-day Studio deploys collective imagination as a method for exploring alternative and inclusive narratives that respond to ongoing global crises. Amid closure of political, cultural and social spaces and intersectional oppressions of multiple communities, the project invites both researchers and artists to craft collective interventions of the future of world ordering by dialectically confronting (1) global discourse about the decline of ‘liberal international order’ and (2) positions and practices of decolonial worldmaking.
The project asks: How can we think inclusive global political and social structures without reinvigorating traditional approaches rooted in Western canons of liberal world ordering? How can we craft alternative narratives and practices that respond to the ongoing global intersectional processes of closures, exclusions, and divisions associated with, and exacerbated by, the transformation of liberal worldmaking? How can academic, artists, and practitioners move beyond diagnosing the failures and pathologies global political institutions and structures toward developing joined strategies for forging pathways of solidarity and reconciliation.
We take Ruha Benjamin’s work on collective imagination as a common point of departure for thinking practices and processes of worldmaking that envision concepts and narratives beyond prevailing academic approaches. The studio leads with the principle of unlearning, rooted in decolonial thought and praxis, and unfolds over three dimensions:
• Internal – A generative workshop space for participants to offer “impulses”—semi-structured interventions ranging from talks and conversations to performances, screenings, or demonstrations—responding to our shared motif of imagination amid closure. These interventions form a collaborative and curated archive.
• External – Public-facing engagement with institutions and communities in the host city to test and express emergent ideas in new media or formats.
• Assembly – A final convening to shape the Studio’s outputs, from publications to installations, podcasts, or future collaborations.
Organizers
Kavi Joseph Abraham, theorist of race and the international order, Durham University
Dennis R. Schmidt, scholar of human diversity and world ordering, Durham University and Joachim Herz Fellow 2024-2025
Participants
- Azekel, singer, songwriter, producer
- Oumar Ba, political scientist of violence, race, and the human condition, Cornell University
- Matthew Covey, arts advocate, attorney, and activist
- Cara New Daggett, writer and researcher on energy, sustainability, and the climate crisis, University of Hamburg
- Adom Getachew, political theorist of race, diaspora, and indigeneity, University of Chicago
- Jeanne Morefield, scholar of political thought and imperialism, University of Oxford
- Bisrat Negassi, fashion designer, author, and cultural curator
- Annalena Oppel, inequality researcher, London School of Economics and Political Science
- Minna Salami, author, cultural critic, and public thinker
- Tamara Shogaolu, interdisciplinary artist, director, and creative technologist
- Deva Woodly, political scientist of race, economics, and social movements, Brown University
in cooperation with
