Musings from the Margins of a Polychrome Future

Abstract

I decided to create MMPF mostly for my own process of self-discovery around my beliefs around the relationship between planning and speculative fiction. As a thesis project my initial desire was to hold a convening of futurists, artist, planners, and architects to discuss how we meld our fields to imagine futures that are inclusive not just in physicality but in the values, interests, and needs that hold primacy with which we imagine them. Th en the conference down-sized to pairing artists/futurists with planners/architects/urbanists to engage in world-building exercises. Th at was still too much for me to bite-off for this thesis process, and I was not comfortable asking artists and creative to contribute to this process for free - goodwill and gratitude doesn't buy groceries. Then in late January early February I spent a lot of time reflecting on what it is that I wanted from this project, separate from the requirements of my master's thesis, and started looking back at old idea notebooks that I've kept over the years. I decided to begin a similar process with this thesis - just collect notes as I interacted with people, ideas came into my head, I encountered people whose experiences I'd never considered. It was in the midst of this journaling, reflecting and re-centering that the name for the project emerged: Musings from the Margins of a Polychrome Future. A project convening futurist and planners to expand our collective imagination of who belongs in cities of the present and future.