Camden Imagines Participant Blogs
Small steps to tackle big, wicked problems
Imagination Activism empowers you to make change from wherever you are — by Liam Hall
This blog is part of a series of blogs written by the participants of the Camden Imagines programme. This eight week training introduced council officers and public servants to the skills of collective imagination and horizontal leadership to empower them to become agents of change in the borough.
Liam is a Locality Leader working within Camden Children’s centres helping to coordinate services for families with children under 5 years. In this blog,
“I guess that is what Camden Imagines gave me. Not an answer to the big problems we face as a species i.e. climate change, but that we can make a difference by doing small things. We can subtly influence the environment we are in.”
I gained a lot from Camden Imagines. I have picked out two exercises from the course that most impacted me and the way I do things and included vignettes from my journal and poetry and images I collected along the way. Enjoy…
The world as it is… To ‘What if’?
Camden Imagines gave us an opportunity to reflect on how our world could be rather than feeling stuck in the here and now.
A key aspect was to keep a journal of thoughts, ideas and notes. My blog details the notes I made from this… As you will see my thoughts jump around a bit. I guess this reflects the energy of the project as I was introduced to new ideas and ways of thinking about climate change.
Journal:
A world of food growing — a world where there is care for plants and the environment… The utopia, the simplicity of the world as it could be… (Removing) The poverty of our world, the inequality, the 24-hour society, gated communities… Toiling to achieve the dream?
Reframing, removed from the present day? Perception, interpretation of the present moment, how the next moment could be…
One of the early activities of the programme was to undertake a mindful walk with imagination prompts. This inspired me to take action, albeit in a very small way to try and change the dumping of rubbish in my street…
Journal:
I think about the rubbish outside my house. Why is it here? Where does it come from? Why doesn’t anyone else notice it?
I decorated the rubbish bin in the dead of night with a decorative sleeve. One side reads, ‘Hi how are you?’ the other, ‘We live here, let’s keep it clean.’ A subtle change, to prompt different thinking… I am not sure it changed anyone’s littering habit but I had some discussion with neighbours in my street about why this was occurring and I felt in a small way empowered by doing something…
I guess that is what Camden Imagines gave me. Not an answer to the big problems we face as a species i.e. climate change, but that we can make a difference by doing small things. We can subtly influence the environment we are in.
Exploring Failure
I was very interested in the module exploring, understanding and reframing failure.
Journal: What holds us back? Fear, anxiety — contraction, withdrawing. The way brains work, befriending failure… Feeling like a cowpat.
Seven failures on my failure log, written within 5 minutes of starting one…
- Not keeping up with workload
- Not alerting team about sickness
- Poorly prepared presentation
- Taking work home in the evening
- Got on the wrong train home
- Mix up over appointments
- Distracted by social media/ concentration
I like the warmth and concept of befriending our failures, acceptance of these in the moment, recognising these as an important part of oneself. Just how we are within this moment.
This led me to reflect as a manager in Camden, on an additional arm or trait needed for my day-to-day work. I guess broadening my understanding of emotional intelligence to include a 5th element — freedom of thought…
- Self-awareness
- Self-management
- Social awareness
- Relationship management
- The ability to grant freedom of thought
Active hope
“Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower.” — Shigenori Kameoka
I am imagining a world where people walk together, talk together, and enjoy the countryside and the world we live in. A time of gentleness, where people just walk and enjoy the environment…
My experience was one of empowerment, celebrating not eating meat, vegetable diet, valuing creativity within my personal life — painting, leading a walk and sharing a climate change poem, working to promote empathy within day-to-day work with residents. What you do matters and makes a difference…
Imagination Activism is a subtle change, to prompt different thinking…
From what is, to what if?
A world of food growing — a world where there is care for plants and the environment… The utopia, the simplicity of the world as it could be… The poverty of our world, the inequality, the 24-hour society, gated communities… Toiling to achieve the dream?
Reframing, removed from the present day? Perception, interpretation of the present moment, how the next moment could be…
An imagination walk.
I think about the rubbish outside my house. Why is it here? Where does it come from? Why doesn’t anyone else notice it?
Three Stories of our time: Joanna Macy
Business as Usual — The Industrial Growth Society
The Great Unravelling
- Economic decline
- Resource depletion
- Climate change
- Social division and war
- Mass extinction of species
- The double reality
The Great Turning
- The first dimension: holding actions
- The second dimension: Life sustaining systems and practices — The third dimension: A shift in consciousness
Active hope and the stories of our lives
“Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower.” Shigenori Kameoka
I am imagining… Holding the pain of the world, choosing differently, choosing life…
Spaciousness — overwhelm. Trying to do too much. Planned/ unplanned. Let’s be gentle. Morning journaling — evening pages? Try the morning post dream space…
I am imagining a world where people walk together, talk together, enjoying the countryside and the world we live in. A time of gentleness, where people just walk and enjoy the environment…
Check-ins are not wacky, weird, but ways to engage the thinking brain… Ways that enable indirect honesty. Window of insight into internal world(s). Enabling people who feel psychologically comfortable to be present. Be able to contribute…
Check-ins: weather, animals…
The Moral Imagining Three Pillars Framework
• Future Generations
• More-Than-Human World
• Ancestors
Future Ancestors — exploring what we are doing to the 7th generation
My experience was one of empowerment, celebrating not eating meat, vegetable diet, valuing creativity within my personal life — painting, leading a walk and sharing a climate change poem, working to promote empathy within day-to-day work with residents. What you do matters and makes a difference…
Failure
What holds us back? Fear anxiety — contraction, withdrawing. The way brains work, befriending failure… Feeling like a cowpat. 7 failures on my failure log, written within 5 minutes of starting one…
- Not keeping up with workload
- Not alerting team about sickness
- Poorly prepared presentation
- Taking work home in the evening
- Got on the wrong train home
- Mix up over appointments
- Distracted by social media/ concentration
Befriending these, acceptance in the moment, recognising these as part of oneself. Just how we are within this moment.
A different trait for managers — broadening emotional intelligence.
1. Self-awareness
2. Self-management
3. Social awareness
4. Relationship management
The ability to grant freedom of thought
The Context of Hope — Blind Hope?
What is toxic hope? Quiet hope. Reasons why people may not be hopeful. Not everyone is in the same place about hope. Compassion for this. Just a bit more mindful and all will be well… Not really. Being paid to constantly perform, this means you will never be creative… There is never a place/time to reflect, contemplate, grow.
- Time, permission, practice
Imagination 3 pillars — Imagination, Purpose, Endeavour
What if Imagination is Urgent
Step change thinking
What if we tapped into cross-organisational connections and reimagined collaboration…
Working with Futures and Time
What shape is time?
Ideas of the future
Ideas of the past
Shape and perception the present
4 Futures: Continued Growth, Collapse, Discipline, Transformation (Survival?)
Building agency in the face of uncertainty exercise
• Perception of the future: Uncertain v’s Certain
• Locus of control: Other v’s Self
What it is like to influence someone who is thinking in a different way. To hear about others and why they think, they think in this way. To think that empathy is the starting point…
To bring playfulness into the workplace, removal of fear, increase the desire for change…
London a forest within a City, rather than a City with a few trees… Colonised Imagination
• Education System
• Performance Culture
• Advertising, Social Media, Information
Final words
- The importance of imagination for emotional and psychological wellbeing — To lead/ create more psychologically safe spaces where I work — To offer more creative, thing spaces where I work, consider reframing situations, to offer playfulness
Attachment: Re-imagined Collaboration Camden (Group Presentation)
The enjoyment of collaboration to produce the presentation and pleasure of offering this within the graduation ceremony… I participated, contributed and benefited from this exploratory/ learning opportunity…
A poem…
Let Them Not Say
Jane Hirshfield
Let them not say: we did not see it.
We saw.
Let them not say: we did not hear it. We heard.
Let them not say: they did not taste it. We ate, we trembled.
Let them not say: it was not spoken, not written. We spoke,
we witnessed with voices and hands.
Let them not say: they did nothing. We did not-enough.
Let them say, as they must say something:
A kerosene beauty.
It burned.
Let them say we warmed ourselves by it, read by its light, praised,
and it burned.
— 2014
This blog is part of a series written by Camden’s Imagination Activists as part of their Imagination Activism programme called “Camden Imagines”. To read the other blogposts in the series, please visit this link.
