The Emissaries From the Future Have Landed and They Want Your Imagination

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Imagination is our birthright: everyone owns this power and everything created must first be imagined. Yet, too often, we’re persuaded to believe our voices don’t count or that the future is determined by a powerful few. In these times, exercising social imagination—the capacity to envision alternatives to what is—is a radical and necessary act, shifting dominant narratives and affirming that all of us make the future.

And that's why the people-powered U.S. Department of Arts and Culture along with dozens or partner organizations is launching #DareToImagine—a weeklong, nationwide exercise of social imagination.

From October 10-18, 2015, “Emissaries from the Future” will be hosting pop-up Imagination Stations in public spaces across the country, using creative tactics to engage participants in envisioning the world we wish to inhabit and—looking back from the future—celebrating the work we did to bring it into being. Imagination Stations cover a wide range of issues—from ending gun violence, state violence, and mass incarceration, to preserving indigenous culture, standing up for water rights and reproductive justice, to creating community health and safety, to building a world that invites the full creative participation of all people, and so much more.

Want to take part? Find a #DareToImagine participatory mural, bike-powered imaginarium, performance, or pop-up gazebo from the future near you on our Featured Visions Map.

And whether or not you can make it to an Imagination Station this week, you can contribute your vision of a more just and vibrant world. Simply post on social media using the hashtag #DareToImagine and your post will be pulled into a vibrant mosaic of images and texts from across the country. Together, we’ll create a crowd-sourced vision of the future, inspiring art, policy, and community action. And when we have the audacity to dream in public, when we begin to unleash imagination and turn it into action, we can move the world.

The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture * is a local & national action network of artists, cultural workers, and other community members mobilizing creativity to envision and enact a world rooted in empathy, equity, and social imagination. Learn more about what we stand for through our Statement of Values and join us by enlisting as a Citizen Artist. (*The USDAC is not a government agency.)