Huddlecraft

✨ New Action Inquiry: What if we learnt to grieve together? ✨ After a powerful first cohort in 2024, we’re delighted to be offering a new collective grief journey this spring… As practitioners, we see a deep connection between grief and creativity, grief and love, grief and compassion, grief and imagination. We believe that grieving together is an essential part of what it means to live and work in these times. Our grief, when acknowledged and tended to together, can be a truly creative and connecting force that allows us to explore the deeper parts of ourselves, access our soul-work, and reshape the ways we understand and move in the world. In this learning journey, we’ll come together to explore the expansiveness of grief through the lens of six different creative practices – Hands, Time, Embodiment, Relationship, Poetics, and Ritual. If you’re drawn to exploring the expansiveness of grief, what it means to grieve together as a practice, and the potential of grief as a portal for imagining and world building – get in touch! 👋 Slow Work Garden facilitators: Christina Watson and Lucy Williams 🏡 Location: London & Brighton, in-person (tbc as the group emerges) 📅 Duration: 20th March to 5th June, 6 sessions over 13 weeks 🌱 More info: See link in comments or message us for a chat Pic: Words from 2024 action inquiry participant Nikki 💚

2 years, ∽ £170k distributed, 71 collective imagination projects funded around the world. Today I want to share a wonderful write-up from Kassamira Carter-Howard ‘Shifting Power through Imagination: reflections on two years funding collective imagination work’, which captures, in some depth, how Kass, Tim Frenneaux and I, alongside the Collective Imagination Practice Community team (Anna Garlands Hannah McDowall Jake Garber), have worked to develop a community-led micro-fund, made possible by Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and Arising Quo. Kass writes about the intricacies of the journey, the governance structure, the process we've iterated, the lessons learned and some hopes for the future of the fund. Working on the Practice Fund as part of the CIPC has been very much like gardening: planting many seeds and watching with awe as things germinate and then fruit, sometimes many months later. Such as, this beautiful set of cards, Tending to Endings (pictured), that I recently received a set of. Made by Heather Knight Ally Kingston and Will Brown, the deck reimagines endings as opportunities for care and intention, supporting personal reflection, but also addressing collective challenges. They say "in a time of escalating crises, it is essential we think about how to ‘hospice’ outdated systems, behaviours and ideas". This is only one example, there are so many more, some of which we'll be sharing publicly very soon, as part of the CIPC 'Seed Library' which collects collective imagination projects (case studies) and activities (repeatable steps which anyone can pick up and use). More about this soon...

In uncertain times, our ability to innovate and think creatively – to unlearn, imagine new possibilities, and experiment our way forward – is needed more than ever. Thank you to our incredible 63 UN Innovation Fellows who joined us from 22 United Nations organizations in 34 countries over the last 4 months for a journey of learning, co-creation, and growth – together we created a collaborative community committed to exploring new ways of working within the UN. As the UN 2.0 | United Nations Policy Brief says “stronger technical solutions alone will not deliver the change envisioned for UN 2.0. We see the faster adaptation of our culture as the critical step to bring the quintet elements to life”. We’re proud to be purposefully incubating the creative culture envisaged in UN 2.0 through our unique programme design that emphasizes the power of social change through diverse small groups. We’re deeply grateful to our co-chairs, Thomas Davin UNICEF Innovation Robert Opp UNDP Hila Cohen WFP Innovation Accelerator, for creating the space through UNIN to try new things and create community across the UN.  Kersten Jauer Ayaka Suzuki thank you for inspiring us on UN 2.0 and why culture is at the heart of it & for the ongoing support of colleagues in the office of the United Nations Secretary-General for our work. A special shout-out to our incredible hosts Gabriela Spaizmann Aziret Z. Anvar Aminov Helen Clarissa Schlüter Flavia Reale Juliana Maziero Castro Gagan V. Aoife Harte Nathalie Delorme Fabiola Kouakou Shanice Da Costa Hannah-Sophie Wahle for all your energy and insights in shaping this. Special thank you to our guest contributors - we couldn’t be more grateful to Daniel Ford at Huddlecraft for your invaluable insights on peer-led learning to kick off our Hosting Track together back in October. Mary MacLennan from UN Innovation Network and Amani Bathily Edward M. The Beyond Lab at UN Geneva thank you for your insights on behavioral and affective sciences, Katja Bouman and colleagues at the WFP Innovation Accelerator on the power of human-centered design and Ariana Monteiro and Amani Bathily United Nations Global Pulse The Beyond Lab at UN Geneva on storytelling. Eduardo Belinchon de la Banda thank you for bringing prototyping to life and showing us how quickly we can test our ideas through the Design Studio and to the many colleagues and partners who have shaped the programme so far 🤗 #InnovationCulture #Innovation #UNTwoZero Johanna Jochim Ruth Blackshaw Timon Bati

This week, Clara Polina Vogt and I hosted a session in which participants designed a food experience where conflict is explicitly invited as a guest. This is part of a Huddlecraft peer-learning journey “Working with Grief and Tension in Impact Communities.” Drawing inspiration from the teachings of the incredible food designer Marije Vogelzang and her Summer school course "Designing Conceptual Dinners," we explored - Scenarios and settings – ranging from conflict as the main guest and messenger to all of us representing difference/other/conflict. - The food we would serve to such a meal – from the sweet potato’s silent endurance to Za’tar’s regional variations and the eggplant’s adaptability. - The guests' experience – from collaborative cooking, and live preparations to dedicated care spaces. - Senses & aesthetics – from seemingly “neutral spaces” (white table cloth, clear lighting, no music and scent) to mixed Soviet and modern glassware, the breadth of ideas was fascinating. With thanks to my fellow peer-learners for allowing us to guide you through this workshop, Marije for her teachings and HuddleCraft for offering spaces like these. Photo credit: Atelier Code Noir

Warm January wishes from us at The Slow Work Garden, and an invitation to join one of our two upcoming group learning journeys in slow and griefy rebellion... 🌱 Action Inquiry: Slowing down together – **still a couple of places left** 🌱 In collaboration with Maria Dorthea Skov, we’re returning to our roots to co-explore the question, 'What if we learnt to slow down together?' Starting on Saturday 18th January 2025, this journey is for anyone interested in building a ‘slowing down practice’, and in staying with the trouble of slowing down in a world focused on speed – especially when there is great urgency and strength of purpose in the work to be done. 🌱 Action Inquiry: Grieving together – **hot out of the greenhouse** 🌱 After the success of our recent inquiry into grief, we’re coming together again with Christina Watson to explore the question, 'What if we learnt to grieve together?' Starting in early March 2025, this journey is for people who are drawn to exploring the expansiveness of grief, grief and grieving as creative practice, and the potential of grief as a portal for imagining and world building. If either of these inquiries speak to something in you, you can find out more via the links in comments, and we'd love to hear from you. And if you know someone else they might resonate with, please share and pass on the details 💚 Pic: Favourite tree in last week's New Year mist