Workshop: From Climate Anxiety to Action: Tools to Build a Radical Imagination

We know what a future of climate change apocalypse looks like, but for so many it is difficult to imagine a future of hope and solutions. This series of courses provide a framework to understand the causes of climate anxiety and tools to turn that anxiety into action through practice cultivating a radical imagination.

Inspired by the works of Sarah Jacquette Ray on climate anxiety, as well as Naomi Klein, adrienne maree brown, Favianna Rodriguez, and bell hooks on tangible actions for transformative social change, participants will practice cultivating a radical imagination through co-creating a cultural revolution to practice re-imagining a future of climate solutions. The goal of this workshop is to provide a framework for understanding the design systems that have led to the issues of climate change and inequality that directly cause the symptoms of climate anxiety. Participants will learn to reframe climate action away from anxiety and toward community, and to practice tools that can be used at home, in the classroom, or in larger-scale organizing to practice design that embraces community over hyper-individualism, collaboration over competition, and regeneration over extraction.

Participants will:

Reimagine systems and spaces in a way that identifies how everyday activism and fostering meaningful relationships can support the larger global movement for justice-centered climate action,
Pair theory with practice by storytelling, visual art, video and more to actualize that change.
Through mindfulness, journaling activities, storytelling and practicing visual representations, participants will gain tools to work through their own climate anxiety as well as connect problems and projects they are currently grappling with to bring ideas and frameworks back to their teams to implement in their work.