The Desirable Futures exhibition enables visitors to envision what a sustainable future might look like

The discussion starters and scenarios on display are based on future-themed discussions held at TUPA workshops on sustainable development. The aim is to shed light on future-related work and encourage wider debate on sustainability themes.

Espoo resident Outi Hynynen, who was one of the first people to visit the exhibition, shared her thoughts with us:

“As soon as you enter the exhibition, the future starts looking quite rosy because of the delightful colour scheme used in the exhibition space. I also immediately noticed the arrows on the floor showing the right direction. A lovely combination of limitless dreaming and ease prepared by someone else. The exhibition has been carefully put together, all content has meaning, and visitor participation has been made easy.

There are many opportunities for participation; you could say that participation is the whole point. Visitors can find inspiration, tips and thought-provoking questions, but ultimately the most important content is what happens in the visitor’s mind. At first, it feels challenging; the questions seem too broad and there are too many possible answers. But once you write down your first thought, your self-doubt and fear of the blank page subside and your thoughts start forming into words.

After seeing the exhibition, I asked myself whether all this envisioning is of any use? In a way, the ideas that appear on the walls, written by me and others, seem quite simple. They seem like possible futures that would be easy to create. And the direct outcome of almost all the ideas – if not all of them – would be increased wellbeing. This raises the question: why are we not already implementing these ideas? The only reason I could think of was that many of these measures depend on attitudes, which are not easy to change. The good thing is that we can all do our share to bring about a shift in attitudes. But where to start, and what can one person do to make these futures happen? That is probably the most burning question raised by the exhibition.

Finally, I would like to say that I thought the use of artificial intelligence in envisioning futures was a fun detail! It shows us that, in a way, the future is already here: we cannot stop the passing of time, but we can focus our energy on making sure that the future is a desirable one.”

The exhibition is open until 24 March at Aalto University’s Väre building, in the V1 Gallery on the second floor. For more information, go to the event page. To register for co-creation sessions held at the exhibition, please contact marika.taipalus@espoo.fi.

You can find more tips on how to participate in the development of your hometown on the Participate and Contribute webpage.