Purpose:

This workshop is designed as an experience. Participants will have the opportunity to imagine and begin building the foundations of their own worlds, tapping into the creative and imaginative muscles that many of us stop using as we grow up. Through hands-on activities, the workshop creates space for emotional openness, curiosity, and expansive thinking. It is particularly well suited for groups that are already exploring these ideas, as well as those looking to strengthen their ability to imagine new possibilities and envision meaningful futures for themselves and the communities they serve.

WHAT’S INCLUDED:

Reclaiming Imagination begins with playful warm-ups designed to move participants out of judgment mode and back into imagination mode, creating an environment where curiosity, openness, and possibility can take the lead.

Explore the Tools of Worldbuilding introduces the creative practices worldbuilders use to develop rich, believable universes. Through guided prompts, participants explore geography and cosmology, culture, ritual and belief, language and naming, systems and power, economy, sensory details, conflict, and change.

Build Your World gives participants the opportunity to put those tools into practice by creating the foundations of their own universe, either individually or collaboratively. The collaborative approach can be especially powerful for teams and communities, creating an opportunity to imagine a shared world that can become the foundation for shared culture. Everyone leaves with the seed of a world they can continue developing long after the workshop ends.

Worldbuilding as Wellbeing explores how the process of worldbuilding can create opportunities for connection, shared meaning, reflection, and cultural change. In group settings, it can serve as a creative tool for strengthening relationships and helping teams and communities imagine new possibilities together. In clinical or trauma-informed settings, the workshop would be designed to complement existing care and co-facilitated with appropriately trained professionals. The workshop is not therapy, and it does not position the facilitator as a counselor or medical professional. Rather, it offers an additional creative tool that can support connection, expression, and meaning-making within the appropriate context. Experience facilitating this kind of imaginative work in a juvenile detention setting provides a meaningful proof of concept for its potential in environments where trust, openness, and new ways of imagining the future are especially important.