We visited Dundee's Future with Rob Hopkins - here's what we learned
- Changemakers
- Oct 21
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 29
Last week, Rob Hopkins brought his time machine to Dundee for the day so we could see for ourselves that the future is bright.
During the day Rob hosted an inspiring full-day 'How to Fall in Love with the Future' workshop at the Apex Hotel, guiding us through a series of activities which brought our visions of Dundee's future to life while exemplifying the importance of imagination, storytelling, and community in conserving hope and inspiration through troubled times, and feeling empowered to build a future we're excited about.
In the evening you brought your questions to Rob at a Q&A style session hosted by our very own Angela Houghton, with an introduction from Dr Rebecca Wade at Abertay University.
Below, you'll find a small selection of photos from the day. You'll find all photos on our Flickr account.
Here's how we travelled to 2030 and fell in love with Dundee's future:
Arriving
We welcomed our fellow Dundonian time travellers to the Apex Hotel with free copies of Rob Hopkins' latest book, How to Fall in Love with the Future, for thirty of the earliest birds, and some breakfast - which included some fresh locally sourced blueberries picked for us by The Gleaning Project. Lynsey Penny from Transition Dundee introduced Rob, and the day began.
How we felt about Dundee's future
Throughout the day, we recorded how we were feeling about Dundee's future with an interactive textile art piece by local artist, Mel Kalkan. Flowers could be pinned to the banner to express how we felt. Each colour of flower represented a different feeling: red for angry, green for hopeful, orange for inspired, yellow for curious, pink for neutral, or blue for worried.
The future is creative
We wanted our trip to Dundee's future to be as creative as possible, so we invited illustrator and plaything maker Cara Rooney to illustrate the day. Cara captured so much detail from the workshop. What a fantastic way to remind us of our trip to 2030 whenever we're looking for some inspiration!
Potato Creatures
After an introductory presentation from Rob, it was time to get our imaginations fired up. Each armed with a single potato, Rob asked us to form groups and work together with our tatties to create potato creatures. We shared some facts about our creature with the room - what they liked to eat, where they lived, their favourite thing to do, etc.
Time Travelling
With our imaginations raring to go, we were ready to step into Rob's time machine and head to Dundee 2030. We spent some time there exploring, envisioning a future that inspires and energises us.
We worked together to make collages about what we saw in the time machine, and then shared our vision with the room.
Scent Cocktails
Now we had a pretty good idea what our future looks like, but what about our other senses? What does the future smell like? Using natural scents, we created our own 'scent cocktails' and had a 'cocktail party' where we shared the scents we'd created with everyone else. The future smelled wonderful - like a garden in bloom.
What If?
After lunch, we went out in groups on a 'walk of what if' around Dundee city centre. We let our imaginations run wild and wrote down our ideas on strips of paper. Back in the workshop space, we sorted our 'what ifs' and decided on a few to focus on.
We came up with ways to realise some of the ideas we picked together, and the presented them all to the room. Shona closed out the workshop after an inspiring day.
In Conversation with Rob Hopkins
In the evening, Angela hosted a Q&A session with Rob at Abertay University, with an introduction from Dr Rebecca Wade.
What we learned
Imagination and community are powerful tools for building a future that we want to live in. They are essential to staying hopeful and motivated during challenging times, because they remind us that we have the power to build something that excites us, and we are far from being alone in that effort.
When you feel overwhelmed by climate and social justice issues:
Join or connect with a community. Join a community garden, a community theatre, a book club, a social action group... anything that feels right for you.
Take a 'walk of what if' - go for a walk and let your imagination take you to a future you're excited by. Then, write a list of 5 things you could do to realise some of your favourite ideas.
Get creative - write something, sketch, take some photographs. Creating things help us feel empowered to change the world a little.
While we can imagine it, and work together to build it, the future is still ours to create and there is every reason to feel hopeful about 2030 and beyond.
