Rob Hopkins
on Reclaiming Collective Imagination
“Imagination, once invoked, celebrated and let loose, becomes infectious. I dream of it as being a time when, as a famous poster put it, ‘beauty is in the street’. But much of what I dream of isn’t really a dream at all. It’s already here. Go out and find it, pay it a visit, make it happen wherever you live!”
Rob thinks we cannot build what we cannot imagine.
If we don’t make the space to dare to imagine how life could be different, then we definitely won’t see any transformation. “How many people in a Ministry of Defence actively imagine a peaceful world? How many people in a Ministry of Justice actively imagine a world without prisons?” Unless we intentionally create “What If?” spaces to wonder and wander, a creative future won’t come to fruition.
Rob Hopkins is an artist, author, TED speaker and co-founder of Transition Network. In his “Ministry of Imagination Manifesto”, he invites us to join him in a time machine and travel to a future where the birdsong is noticeable everywhere and the air smells fresh like spring. He harvested bold, audacious, and beautiful policies into a platform for the profound envisioning of our society where imagination is a queen who cherishes and nurtures us all.
His love story with imagination was a journey of discovery: while reading environmental thinkers who kept saying ‘Climate change is a failure of the imagination’, Rob thought: “Wait, what about that? Why are we failing at something that comes so naturally to us as children? We’re so busy that we don’t have time for our imaginative lives."
Playfulness and the ability to speak about the future in seductive visions that engage all the senses are key: “We’ve deprived ourselves of the most critical tool to languish. We must cultivate longing rather than cling to a belief that everything is broken and breaking.” Too often our discussions focus on how irreplaceable what we will need to leave behind is, rather than painting “a picture of the future that is so delicious and exquisite!”
Imagination is central to empathy. Yet, it is also in decline precisely when we need it most. It’s more important than ever to revive and reclaim it. Rob’s book, ‘From What Is to What If’, is a call to action to unleash our collective imagination. He shares stories from all around the world and spotlights the ones who are working on it now, as we speak. Although Rob claims we’ve come to see imagination as a luxury, he also believes we need to push bolder than ever to make it run through everything we do. How do you measure imagination though? Is it vital to our health? The answers to such questions will appear when our daily lives feel rich with possibility, less anxious, and more open to embracing the unknown.
Read Rob Hopkins’s answers for Inspirators and make “Power to the Imagination” your motto!
Thank you, Rob, for being a Minister of Imagination!
#INSPIRATORS QUESTIONNAIRE
Name: Rob Hopkins
Company / Institution: Co-founder of Transition Network but now an independent imagination catalyst.
Title: Imagination Catalyst
Website: robhopkins.net
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-hopkins-09442948/
Country of origin: UK
Country you currently live in: In the southwest of England, in a small town called Totnes.
Your definition of Regeneration: At the moment, pretty much everything human beings do has a harmful effect on the world around us. For me, regeneration means getting to a place where, instead, the things we do have a beneficial impact, boosting biodiversity, increasing health and wellbeing and drawing down CO2. Regeneration is when we become a force for good in the world.
Main business challenge you face: Investment. Organisations with no imagination, who are unable to dive in and try something new. Conservative thinking.
Main driver that keeps you going: A deep rage about the extractive mindset that has created the climate and ecological emergency but which still feels entitled to continue exactly the way it has been doing. The desire to create a better world for my kids, and everyone else’s. A deep belief that we can do an awful lot better.
The trait you are most proud of in yourself: Playfulness.
The trait you most value in others: Tenacity. And kindness!
Passions & little things that bring you joy: My kids. Printmaking. The drawings of Van Gogh. Music. Waking up next to someone you love. Growing leeks. The Velvet Underground. Good food. Friends and community. Forests. Swimming. Stracciatella ice cream. Handmade ravioli filled with wild mushrooms and topped with truffles.
The Inspirators who determined you to take the regenerative path:
Bill Mollison and David Holmgren (the originators of permaculture)
Albert Bates
The Dalai Lama
Christopher Alexander
Ianto Evans (cob building pioneer)
Joanna Macy
A starting point for companies or professionals that are beginning the regeneration journey: Intentionally creating space for the imagination, for that organization to profoundly reimagine itself in the context of the climate emergency, to bring fresh thinking to exploring new possibilities. When an organization is set up to do one thing, it will only profoundly reimagine itself if it creates a dedicated and well-facilitated space in which to do so.
Most used and abused clichés in sustainability that bother you: The word ‘sustainability’ itself, which is now largely meaningless. But the worst was years ago when I saw a box of detergent with a label reading ‘Environmentally friendlier’. Friendlier than what? Kryptonite?
Oh, and ‘pragmatic’. I hate the word pragmatic. It has come to denote, even celebrate, a scaling back of ambition, a watering down of dreams and visions, and a giving up of any belief that things are capable of changing at speed.
An honest piece of advice for young people who lose hope: You may be right. But you may also be wrong. And if you’re wrong it means you could end up missing out on the most exhilarating time in history when things changed incredibly fast, and you got to live through that time. There is no option in which things don’t change incredibly quickly. If you do nothing, they will change incredibly quickly but in unimaginably awful ways. There’s no guarantee that if you step up and try to play a role in transforming things it will work, but it might, and how incredible would that be? Go for it, and don’t be a bystander.
Books that had a great impact on you / Must-Reads for any regenerative professional:
Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual by Bill Mollison
Lean Logic by David Fleming
Not Too Late by Rebecca Solnit
Just Enough by Azby Brown
World as Lover. World as Self by Joanna Macy
Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren
Black Quantum Futurism: Theory & Practice: Volume 1 by Rasheedah Phillips
Movies / Documentaries you would watch all over again:
Little Miss Sunshine
Demain (Tomorrow)
Wilding
King Coal
Filth and the Fury
Past Lives
Websites / Podcasts you visit frequently: Hurry Slowly; Accidental Gods; Resilience.org
Music that makes you (and your heart) sing:
Biosphere: ‘Substrata’ (album)
Anything by Sun Ra, The Fall or Idles
Josef K: ‘Only Fun in Town’ (album)
The Ronettes: ‘Be My Baby’
Dexys Midnight Runners: ‘Geno’
Anything released on the A Strangely Isolated Place label.
Places you travelled to that left a mark on you: Tibet. Bruges. Copenhagen. The Hunza Valley. Tuscany. Anywhere with mountains. Venice. Always Venice. But as a climate activist, I gave up flying in 2006 and now only travel to places I can reach by train, so some of those places I will never see again.
Global Regenerative Voices you recommend us to follow:
Walidah Imarisha
Ruha Benjamin
Rasheedah Phillip
Mariame Kaba
Aisha Shillingford
Patrisse Cullors
Prentis Hemphill
Andrea J Ritchie
Lyla June Johnston
Dr Jan Willis
Robyn Maynard
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Trends in Regeneration we should keep an eye on: The Preston Model. The Liege Food Belt. The food relocalisation work underway in Mouans Sartoux. Natural building. Houses made from mushrooms. The seaweed revolution.
Events we should attend / Best places for networking (online or offline): ChangeNOW! in Paris. So Good Festival in Marseille.
Impactful and relevant Sustainable Development or Regeneration courses or certifications: My Permaculture Design Course when I was 22 changed my life and rewired my brain.
Phoebe Tickell’s Imagination Activist training. Schumacher College.
My ‘What If’ imagination courses.
Reasons to feel optimistic about our future in 2030: The power of the human imagination. The falling cost of renewable energy. The fact that we already know how to do everything that needs to be done and that those working examples already exist. The fact that the world has adrienne maree brown in it. The fact that humanity has taken great leaps forward before in the past and once they’ve happened, wondering what all the fuss was about.
Reasons to feel pessimistic about our future in 2030: The rise of the Far Right. Donald Trump. Levels of general exhaustion and cynicism.
Regenerative Leadership qualities much needed today: Humour. The ability to speak about the future in positive and seductive visions in a way that engages all the senses. The cultivation of longing rather than clinging to a belief that just listing everything that’s broken and breaking, and focusing on collapse and extinction will somehow be enough. I would argue that the ability to generate positive and seductive visions is the only real way to overcome my answer to the previous question.
The Inspirator you are endorsing for a future edition is:
Adrienne Maree Brown
The quote that inspires you:
"We are most powerful when sourcing our energy from possibility, from our visions, not from the pain we know, but from the world just outside of what we can now see". (Prentis Hemphill, What It Takes To Heal)
Your quote that will inspire us:
