Host Your Own Visioning Journey

Our visioning exercises have been powerful because of preparation with facilitators, co-working with feminists and the tools here. We hope you take this guide and make it yours!

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How To Host

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A group of women sitting and planting seeds are placed along a winding black road.

A woman selling fish along a river joins up to a road, where people plant seeds, paint murals, and tend to a community library and community garden are placed.

1. Create Space

Start the visioning exercise by creating a culture of consent and grounding everyone for the imaginal journey we’re about to embark on.

Ask folks to introduce themselves, their identities and their passions to create a safe space and feeling of community. Make sure everyone is comfortable, and has access to a pencil and paper or digital drawing or writing platform before moving onto the solo visioning exercise.

City scene with a factory in the top left corner, emitting clouds of smoke. A woman facilitator sits cross legged on a road leading away from the city with her arms wide open, inviting us on a journey into the future.

2. Collective Dreaming

During this part of the visioning exercise the facilitator will lead folks through an imaginal journey, to envision what a feminist economic future could look like twenty years from now.

Relax. Participants can start by breathing deeply and closing their eyes if they so choose. They can jot down notes or sketch images that come into their minds throughout this trip to the future.

Make sure to give participants a ten minute break when they return to the present to collect their thoughts and visions.

Two women are crouching on the road planting seeds, which float into the next scene.

Solo Visioning Exercise Script

Let’s take three deep breaths together. Get comfortable where you are sitting. I invite you to close your eyes, open up your hands and uncross your legs. Relax and be ready to receive...

Now, imagine stepping into a time machine and turning the dial to the year 2041. As you speed through time, know you are headed to a place that is the future of your greatest and most hopeful dreams. As you step out of the time machine, you are aware that we have made tremendous changes and that the seeds you helped plant years ago have now become a reality.

Imagine stepping out into your community and beginning to walk around without any concern about your safety and security. What would that feel like?

Begin to move through your community. What do you notice? How have human interactions changed? How are the values of fairness, honesty, care and justice expressed? What do you notice that is different as you walk around, into the food market, in the park and on the street? Where are people living?

You pass a group of children learning together. Approach a child and ask them to describe what they like best about their education.

Imagine every adult earns a good living doing meaningful and safe work. What work do you see people doing? What kinds of businesses are there? How do people pay for things? How are everyone’s needs provided for? What support systems and resources exist for people in the community?

Notice the quality of the air and water and soil. How is energy produced? How is food grown? You know the earth is well cared for. What does it feel like? Smell like? What made a healthy environment possible?

Now let’s zoom out, take an eagle’s eye view. What do you see? What kinds of relationships exist between your community and other communities? How is your region interconnected? How are regions woven in relationship with other neighbouring regions, and the rest of the world? How are these relationships mutually beneficial, and rooted in cooperation and care?

3. Dialogue

Now that we’ve returned to the present, it’s time to discuss what we saw. Participants will be placed in small groups based on a preferred creative medium—music, poetry, visual arts, a dramatic skit, or any other artform that feels right! They will have 15 minutes to share highlights from their visions.

Groups can record their ideas of what a feminist future looks like through post-it notes (either physically, or digitally on a Google Jamboard), that can be accessible to all participants.

A group of women sitting together on the grass, deep in dialogue. One is taking notes on her laptop and another is using her phone. Butterflies float overhead and there is a plate of watermelon in front of them.

4. Doing The Work

Now that we’ve visited the future and had a chance to reflect on what it looks like, it’s time to create a collective picture of what we saw, heard, and felt. This is a magical process where everyone can be creative. The point isn’t creating perfect art, it’s to explore what we envision and to have fun while doing it!

Groups will have 15 minutes to use their chosen medium to create a representation of their collective vision. For example, folks in the music group may write a song. Groups can also come up with a plan for how they will share their artworks with the larger group.

A fisherwoman sits behind her table on the sand next to a river. On the table is a bucket of fresh fish, a stack of newspapers for wrapping, and a reusable tote bag.

5. Our Re-Imagined Reality

Participants will rejoin the larger group to share their artistic representations. Each group has a chance to showcase what they’ve come up with for the New World Theatre. Have fun with it!

After each group has a chance to present, have a short discussion about shared themes and steps necessary to make these visions a reality. What is something you will take forward from this visioning into your life and work? What is an action you can take to move this vision forward?

A community garden, with moss covered stones creates an adjoining path. A woman and child are harvesting cabbage from a planter box.