Reimagine Peace

Reimagine Peace has been a beautiful learning environment for transformational governance. It is a unique space co-created in apparent contradiction: it functions within the system but exists to reimagine it. At the heart of this process, collective governance is imagined and emerges.

The work of an Imagination Catalyst: sensing the tensions

If a catalyst can be an agent that speeds up a reaction by reducing energy, my role was an oxymoron. As an Imagination Catalyst I strived to facilitate collective creativity by slowing down and acknowledging this process requires a lot of energy along the way. Following the metaphor, if catalysts in reality exist as gases, liquids or solids, for the substance of imagination, they take the shape of tensions. A tension is the space between what is and what can be. Tensions are the space for stretching, the potential for change, the struggle to transition from imagination to future. They show up when you feel there is a shift that needs to happen.

I understand a tension as a “gap between the current reality and the potential you sense”. * I've integrated the practice of embodying tensions. I recognise them when I'm triggered by the dissonance between how I perceive a situation and what I would prefer to see.*  Therefore, tensions are personal and they come from sensing the environment and feeling yourself. They are a call for self reflection. Tensions are the substance that prompts imagination.

As an imagination catalyst I sensed several tensions sitting at the intersection of the present we know and the future we'd prefer. I invite you to connect with one of the most meaningful ones for me.

The romantisation of creativity and the resistance to the change we imagine

Catalysing imagination for plurality feels like inhabiting parallel realities. It's holding space both for the excitement of exploring new horizons and the resistance to trying something different. When we romanticise creativity, we struggle to lean into the discomfort of the process.

I perceived the romanticisation of creativity in moments when:

• We thought of creativity as a single step in a process. Usually placed at the beginning, like an ice breaker, or at the end, like make-up.
• We idealised creativity as innocent, playful, carefree and careless.
• We reverted to the expression "let's get creative” as a prompt for taking action when what we actually meant was “let's figure out how to do more with less”.
• We assigned creativity to the artists, admiring their openness to alternative worldviews like if it was some kind of talent.

At the same time, I believe there was resistance to change in the room because putting creativity into action is difficult, it asks us:

• To start by changing ourselves. It requires that we see how we are part of the challenge, it moves us to transform the way we perceive the world, and how we engage with each other.
• To look at the injustices of the current system so we can understand the intention behind the change. Those injustices can trigger us in different ways or elude us in others, so it asks us for solidarity.
• To unlearn theories, practices, behaviours that have taken us years and generations to master. Knowledge that entitles us to many of our comforts.
• To embrace emergence and engage in a constant process of experimentation that can feel exhausting.
• To speak in languages we have not yet invented. To name concepts that we can't even visualice. To learn by doing without seeing.

If governance is the process of figuring out how to work together, and the practice of collective imagination is a process for learning through navigating tensions as a community, transforming governance is practicing collective imagination.

These reflections are a gesture of reciprocity to the Reimagine Peace Community. I’m grateful for walking alongside them in this journey. Please take them as a prompt to create alternative ways for being together and doing together.