Feeling Futures

Feeling Futures is a participatory workshop that invites visitors to explore the emotional landscapes of the futures they want, fear, or long for—through the lens of trends, identity, and climate imagination. Rooted in my original PhD research on climate emotions and futures literacy, the workshop offers a two-part journey into emotional reflection and speculative creativity. In the first phase, participants are guided through self-reflection using a printed Feelings Wheel, mapping their current emotional relationship to the future. Which emotions feel close? Which feel out of reach? This gentle entry point fosters emotional literacy and self-awareness, without requiring words. In the second phase, participants approach a large, custom-built spinning Feelings Wheel - a playful, tactile centerpiece. Spinning the wheel assigns them an emotion: hope, curiosity, anger, calm, urgency and more. Their creative task is to imagine and design a future where this emotion leads. What kind of world, system, or cultural practice would evoke this feeling? When participants land on more difficult emotions - such as fear, helplessness, or guilt - they’re encouraged to use these as starting points: What kind of future would ease this feeling? What needs to change so this emotion no longer has to exist? Even uncomfortable emotions become powerful creative fuel. Participants respond by writing, drawing, collaging, or crafting their vision, contributing to a growing "Emotional Archive of the Future." Rather than telling participants what the future might look like, Feeling Futures asks: What should it feel like? Its core value: emotion is not the opposite of action—it’s what drives it.