A warm welcome to IMAGINARIUM
We hope it will nourish you and give you a renewed feeling of awareness and what could be called aliveness.
The stories are waiting for you underneath.
Eat them raw, then digest them carefully.
Get started. Enjoy the journey.
Let a new story begin.
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Look through the introductions and choose a story. Enjoy it and proceed to the questions/exercises. Reflect and discuss. Don’t expect to have all the answers immediately at hand. Some need careful digestion.
Use it with your friends, your family, your community, or on your own if you want to examine and unfold your role, potential, and responsibility as a human being in this world right now.
Use it at work if you want to dive a little deeper – and improve your performance by sharpening your values.
Use it as a team building exercise in general.
Or as an innovative professional instrument to improve physical places, communities, and society in full.
Bring it into schools and other educational establishments. Make it part of a project you already have in mind.
IMAGINARIUM Stories
THE CROSSING
GALLOWS HUMOUR • A SECOND CHANCE • ABSURDITY & HOPE
A fable, a fairytale, a manuscript from The Theatre of the Absurd. This story goes straight to the point, plainly asking the deepest-rooted, yet urgently relevant and at the same time often ignored questions like: “Would someone please tell me what’s happening? (…) “Who are we? Where are we heading?”
With a unique sense of gallows humour, this story will take you by surprise and leave you reflecting on the truth in a pig’s statement, wondering what you would choose if you got a second round.
The Crossing takes place at night out at sea close to Elsinore, 1658.
INFO:
Read it or listen to it (10 minutes), then consider the questions at the bottom of this page:)
Relevance: Yes! All-round and absolute relevance. Better read it today. And take your time :)
THE ATTIC
SENSING & TELLING • BUILDING ROME • BETWEEN HEAVEN & HELL
The scene is Rome in the summer of 1590. The city is growing, shifting its shape. There she is, Signora Cortese, in between earthly chaos and ethereal ideas. Her lodging house is full of men from the provinces seeking work or redemption (or both).
La Signora does not appreciate what she sees. The city is taking an unfortunate turn. The meeting with an unusual lodger ignites her imagination. She tells a different story of the city’s future, one, that balances on the edge between the ordinary and the splendid. And behind the burgundy velvet curtain, someone is listening…
Rome was not built on one story. Who were the storytellers behind? Listen to Signora Cortese and give it a thought: What if we built our towns and cities - and lifes - on entirely different stories?
INFO:
Read it or listen to it (24 minutes), then consider the questions and the imaginary exercise - and the inspirational bonus at the bottom :)
Relevance: The Attic is a sensuous story with an abundance of imagery and an unpredictable turn of events. Read it, eat it raw, then read it again, and digest carefully.
Professional relevance: A multi-layered story about how we sense, meet, and shape our surroundings, The Attic can be used as a mind-opening tool for everybody engaged in the shaping of places.
THE RIDE
TIPPING POINTS • WRONG INDICATIONS • SHORT CUTS VERSUS DEAD ENDS
The scene is laid out. You get a feeling of what to expect. And it is wrong. What follows is different. You notice the signs on the way. You think you know how it will end. But you don’t.
When is an alternative route a short cut - and when a dead end? This story is about the tiny, but crucial differences between things turning out bad and things turning out okay, even better than okay. Woven into it is a theme of tipping points and indications. It shares a focus on light in the dark with other IMAGINARIUM stories.
INFO:
Read it or listen to it (11 minutes). No questions will follow and no exercises. This story stands alone; just take it with you.
Relevance: The Ride is part of a series of stories that circle around fundamental, existential matters. Relevant for all of us.
THE fOURTEENTH MAN
SEEING CLEARLY • SAGES & FOOLS • CLOCKWORKS & CRYSTAL BALLS
The world moves in mysterious ways. Beautiful things happen, horrible things happen, weird things, too. Poetry occurs, everyday life continues, everything changes. Meanwhile we try to keep the pace and find our place.
The Fourteenth Man invites you into a precise and detailed, yet weird and wondrous setting. It offers glimpses of clarity and a clear feeling that there is so much more to explore. Now you see it, now you don’t. And maybe that’s the truth about the truth: You can never catch it, only get a glimpse from a million different perspectives.
This story reveals a practice that existed in Paris in the 19th century. Hard to believe, but true. The Fourteenth Man is fascinating and peculiar, tight and light on the surface, but mighty deep for those who enjoy exploring.
INFO:
The Fourteenth Man can lead you in many directions. You choose. You’ll find a few suggestions at the end. Three exercises and a number of questions. Again: You choose your way and your level of complexity. Remember, you are the main character in your own story.
Read it or listen to it (15 minutes), then, if you want the full experience, consider reading or listening to it again, slowly. Please take your time.
Relevance: The Fourteenth Man may serve as the beginning of a new conversation regarding cities, the senses, culture, history, justice, time, beauty, balances, and luck. You continue the line. Or, it may be 15 minutes in the thought-provoking company of people you wouldn’t otherwise meet.
THE DOCTOR’S WIFE
THE POTENTIAL OF DARKNESS • HOW TO MEET A STRANGER • LOVE WHEN LOVE IS GONE
If this story was to be wrapped up and sent as a parcel to an impatient receiver, it should be labeled: “Handle with care”. On the declaration, you’d read: Contains light in darkness and chunks of civilization. Postage according to weight. But this parcel has the weight of life and nobody knows the price of that.
When things fall apart, what is most important? Is it possible to be prepared? The Doctor’s Wife balances between tension and tenderness. It’s easy to read, has a precious feeling to it, and makes you think of simple things like being welcomed by a stranger and finding joy in homemade food in the pantry. Even as darkness is falling.
INFO:
Read it or listen to it (14 minutes), then proceed to the following questions and the memory exercise.
Relevance: The Doctor’s Wife is about fundamental, existential matters. Relevant for all of us.
Professional relevance: Educational contexts. Especially in relation to discussions of culture, war, and civilization.
THE FALL
LOCAL SHOPS • COMMUNITY • STORYTELLING
Shops aren’t just shops. Some build trust between people and establish a sense of place and time. Others do the opposite. Do you have a favorite shop? A shop that makes a difference to the neighborhood? How important are the buildings to a great neighborhood? How important are the relations, trust, and care among people?
The Fall is an expandable and tailored journey telling a small but powerful story, inviting you to consider what makes a good neighborhood, what changes it, and what your own role in it is.
INFO:
Animated film in four episodes
Duration of each film: 2-3 minutes
Exercises: Each episode is followed by three sets of questions marked by asterisks. The asterisks mark the level of complexity
Relevance in general: Everybody with an interest in their neighborhood
Professional relevance connected to community building, retail, urban planning, local economy, place identity, and educational purposes
THE FOX
ROOTS • TRUTHS FROM AN UNEXPECTED ANGLE • CABERNET SAUVIGNON
We could call this a modern fable. About nature and love and anger and hope. Classic stuff. Or we could call it, and that might be a more precise description, a short story, starring a not too sober fox, giving a lecture on the heart of sustainability. Not so classic. Now you know. Still, given these hints, we believe The Fox will surprise you. And make you laugh and give you food for thought for a long time. Let it stay with you or eat it raw and return to digest whenever you’re ready.
INFO:
Listen to it (25 minutes) or read it. We recommend listening to the fox’s lecture.
Chapters: 6
Fox lecture: 1
Number of exercises: 6
Food for thought: Abundant
Relevance in general: This is about our roots and our future. The Fox sneaks into the essence of sustainability and talks about it as a matter of love and potential. If you are tired of sustainability being reduced to technical, scientific matters, as if it were a question of numbers, this might inspire you. In any case, it’s a great story with quite a twist towards the ending.
Professional relevance: If you represent a private company, a council, an institution or organization with sustainability on the agenda, consider including a session with The Fox. It might open new perspectives, sharpen your values, understand other people’s perception, and make you adjust your communication and/or goals. If you aren’t ready to dive deeper, just turn around, and leave the fox alone.
THE BRIDGE
WEALTH • HOME • BIG CHANGES
What if wealth was a question of human, not material, resources? If the American Dream changed? If what you wished for your children was that they’d be more empathic, aware, imaginative, and socially talented than you. Spiritually richer, not physically, stuff-wise. The Bridge is a story about getting used to another life. It questions the notions of wealth and luck and what defines a home.
INFO:
Read it or listen to it (7 minutes), then proceed to the three basic questions that follow.
Relevance: When life really changes, what do you do? When things look bad, what are your options? Whether life is tough or gentle is, at the end, a question of perspective and comparison. Or? The Bridge is told from a child’s perspective. It reminds us of a few universal questions and therefore must be labelled ‘high relevance’ to all of us.
THE PUPPETEER
IDENTITY • RE-ENCHANTMENT • ELEGANCE
The point of departure for this story was a quote: “A sustainable world is one that evolves, as life has evolved for three billion years, toward ever greater diversity, elegance, beauty, self-awareness, interrelationship, and spiritual realization” (Donella Meadows). It ended with a cat sitter and a puppeteer. But maybe the heart of the story isn’t as far from the starting point as you’d think. Elegance, self-awareness, and interrelationships are woven deeply into it. We dare to call it a delicacy for the imagination.
INFO:
Read or listen (9 minutes) and consider/discuss the questions that follow.
Relevance in general: Definitely!
Professional relevance: If you work with the significance of art and imagination in people’s lives, The Puppeteer won’t surprise you; but it may still inspire you. If you’re far from any kind of magic in your professional work, this works as a reminder of its potential.
THE TOWN CRIER
ECONOMICS/THE GLOBAL MARKET • BEAUTY • CONNECTEDNESS
What if the most fundamental part of the Western, capitalist society changed? The market. Can you imagine the transformation from what it is today to something truly beautiful? How would the world and your everyday life change? The Town Crier is a journey into an extraordinary day of an ordinary town. It’ll invite you to look for the beauty (or the lack of beauty) in the way things are connected.
INFO:
Text and/or podcast. Read it all or listen to the whole story. Or mix it: Start reading and when you get to the town crier’s announcement, turn on the sound. Continue reading and switch to sound again when the woman with the burnt cookie gets the microphone.
Read: 8 minutes
Listen: 15 minutes
Exercises: Include wandering and wondering
Relevant for all consumers and producers ready for a renewal of the old, obsolete global market model.
THE FLOWER
LOST & FOUND • SMALL THINGS WITH SIGNIFICANCE • NEW PERSPECTIVES
What do you mostly feel like: Lost or found? Connected or disconnected? Home or not?
How can the places we live in replace the rising challenges of loneliness with a feeling of belonging? The Flower begins in a kitchen with a decent view and ends atop an empty mall. In between there is, among other things, hope.
INFO:
There are two approaches: You can listen to the whole story ( 7 minutes) and proceed to the exercises/micro lectures afterwards. (7 minutes) Or you can read the whole thing, exercises included.
Relevance in general: On an existential level, The Flower is about finding meaning where you are - or trying to escape to get a new perspective. Thus, it caters to most people. It’s also about the potential of places and your role in making the difference between belonging and just being around.
Professional relevance in connection with urban planning and a focus on social infrastructure and the importance of bumping places.