partnerships

partnerships

We seek partnership as practice, not as transaction.

The best collaborations we’ve been a part of weren’t forced under strict timelines and lack of funding, but rather emerged through shared vision, capacity and investment. Our partnerships forged through relationships and deepening of practice that could take us further than either party could have made it alone – where relationships weren’t a byproduct of working together, it was the purpose.

Partnerships

Our three partnership areas are, systems transformation, equitable futures and social impact, where we are currently most fired up. These are starting points, not pre-determined destinations.

Core Skills Practiced

  • Telling the Truth — To name what is actually happening, in our bodies, relationships, institutions, and systems, even when doing so is inconvenient, risky, or scary.
  • Weaving the Micro and the Macro — To attend to our embodied, personal experiences while connecting them to broader systems, histories, and power dynamics.
  • Holding & Metabolizing Contradictions — To remain present when multiple, seemingly opposing truths exist at the same time.
  • Practicing Curiosity – To stay open, to ourselves and to others, even when we feel triggered, defensive, or certain.

Through partnerships, we might linger in one area more than the others or we might weave them together. What matters to us is not which area this work fits in, but whether the relationship is aligned: in values, approach and commitment to the kinds of futures we are all trying to build. 

We bring our full practice, questions and yearnings into every partnership along with all our tools, those fully sharpened as well as those that we are just picking up. Within our practice we foster tools shaped and sharpened through foresight, systems thinking, equitable design, care-based relational infrastructure and a genuine love of experimentation! We are creatives and artists as much as we are strategists, researchers and facilitators. We have built immersive futures experiences, co-designed world-building exercises, developed participatory installations, and created programs that didn’t have a template before we made them. We are good at trying things and at learning honestly from what happens.

We are always looking for aligned partners. Foundations, universities, cultural institutions, community organizations, artists, social enterprises, and fellow travelers in the work. If you’re doing something meaningful and you think our lens, our skills, or our way of working might add something, reach out. Our door is open.

Systems Transformation

Working together toward structural change through an equitable lens.

Systems Transformation partnerships are built around deep, often long-term collaboration with organizations and institutions committed to meaningful structural change. This can include multi-year research initiatives, embedded culture change work, co-developed programs that address root causes rather than symptoms, or strategic partnerships oriented around shifting how systems operate and who they serve.

We believe sustainable change requires perseverance and commitment at all levels of a system, not just the symptoms. It requires prevention and response led by equity, not as a nice to have, but as a core principle. Too often, we have witnessed systems work limited by the same restrictions that keep programmatic funding short-term and metric evaluated. We are interested in the kind of transformation that actually redistributes power, resources and pushes the edges of comfort and status quo.

We combine tools and frameworks from foresight, world building, artifact making, and systems thinking to practice alongside partners working to better understand and navigate the systems we are embedded in – where leverage points exist, and how to move with both urgency and intention. We recognize the value of urgently addressing harm while intentionally focusing on what is possible in the present to build towards the futures we are imagining. We value showing up rather than showing off.

See Previous Project Examples

1 2 3 4 5

Equitable Futures

Within the present, there are signals towards equitable futures.

Equitable Futures partnerships are built to see further and farther together than what is right in front of us. By using imagination and foresight to locate where equity is currently being prioritized and what pathways and conditions need to be created to grow the focus. This can include conference installations and activations, interactive workshops, artifact making and research that provoke and prompt us to slow down and step back to notice patterns that exist.

We believe that imagination is a tool for rehearsal and change. We cannot build futures if we are not even willing to imagine what might be possible. We know the power of imagination and how it can bring alternative possibilities out of the shadows and into the light. We believe that by centering equity within our imagination that it becomes harder and harder to not want this to be our reality. We see imagination as an act of resistance, resilience, restoration, rehearsal and repair.

We push our concepts of reality and what is possible by building collaborative, participatory, provocative processes that invite our partners and communities to pause, reflect and respond to what is right in front of them. We build shared skills and language around scanning our environments, assessing our resources, evaluating patterns, conditions and trends that we see as having an impact on our futures. We acknowledge that equitable futures work has been happening throughout human history and will continue to happen long after we are gone. This work is intergenerational, intersectional and intentional. We bring world-building, scenario planning and immersive experience design to make futures feel not just possible, but plausible.

See Previous Project Examples

1 2 3 4 5

Social Impact

Coming together to experiment, learn, and make a difference.

Social impact partnerships are built on our shared desire, capacity and ability to move towards collective liberation. Through collaboration, conflict and creativity, we focus on building artifacts of the futures we wish existed to examine what roles, relationships and rituals are needed to make them a reality. This work allows us to try new things, learn from them and share what we find.

We believe that social impact comes from a deep desire to shift from the status quo and requires the courage to risk letting that comfort go for what remains uncertain. We cannot solve the problems we have today with the same conditions that created them, so within these partnerships we are examining our individual perspectives, resources and ability to risk what we have in return for something else. This work requires dismantling systems of oppression.

We bring empathy, exploration, experimentation and evaluation to discover what new ideas can be tried and tested. We navigate complexity with care, compassion and curiosity aiming to integrate equity into every element of our partnerships, processes and products. We learn by doing, more than just talking about systems and services. We honour the lived experiences and perspectives we bring as individuals while acknowledging the patterns and systems of the collective. This work requires commitment to naming what lies beneath the surface and addressing root causes. We bring systems mapping, human-centred design, entrepreneurship and foresight to this work to expand our perspectives around what is possible.

See Previous Project Examples

1 2 3 4 5

Contact Us

These areas reflect where we are most eager to grow but they are not the edges of what’s possible. If you’re doing something meaningful and think our work might complement yours, reach out. Some of the most interesting things we’ve done started with someone saying: I have an idea and I think it might be for you.

Book a Discovery Call