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For millennia, across cultures and continents, we have looked to the stars to navigate when we are lost. In this era of transformation, in which everything is in flux, we are locked onto old stars that are pulling us in a perilous direction. We need to discover new possibilities, and reset our course. New Constellations exists to help people imagine and create better, more beautiful futures; futures in which humanity and the planet flourish together. We invite you to meet and journey with so ...
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In January 2024 we embarked on a remarkable journey with a group of young people from all countries of the UK and many different backgrounds; a voyage of discovery into a future imagined by and for young people and future generations. Together with leaders from Paul Hamlyn Foundation and as part of Kinship Discovery, we explored the challenges faci…
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In September 2023, a small group of transformational leaders from across the world gathered deep in the Somerset countryside to go on a journey together. They came together in recognition that these times demand new kinds of leadership; that we must dream big, dig deep and act bravely. Through their journey, the group opened up to new and radically…
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Jess Steele OBE is a community entrepreneur and bold innovator who has spent over thirty years working with communities, creatives, governments, funders, corporates and academics to transform neighbourhoods. Here she introduces us to the wonderful people, places and history of Hastings Commons, a community-led regeneration programme she spearheaded…
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Li An Phoa and Maarten van der Schaaf are behind Drinkable Rivers – a movement bringing people together around a vision of a world in which we can drink from all our rivers; a sign of whole ecosystem balance. Follow them in this encounter as they walk the Thames engaging with local people, school children, farmers, fishermen, politicians, pilgrims …
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Scarlett Somerville is an artist and activist currently studying for her A-levels. Deeply connected to her landscape and enchanted by nature, here Scarlett shares her vision for a simpler future as well as her perspective as a teenager profoundly troubled by a world that seems to be getting exponentially worse, yet not entirely sure her generation …
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The question of how to define and how to identify ‘glimmers’ of the future has been an important part of our journeys and wider research at New Constellations. Gemma has been collaborating with Graham Leicester and Cassie Robinson on a collective enquiry around how to identify examples of the flourishing futures we hope to help reach towards. Made …
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Across four summer days in July 2023, 17 people from all walks of life in York came together to explore the future of the city that they call home. This audio piece tells the story of the journey they went on to discover and create more beautiful futures in York. Made by Jo Barratt with Gemma Mortensen, Iris Andrews, Lily Piachaud, Yasmin El Dabi a…
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Ian Goldin is an academic, economist, author and optimist. Born in South Africa, he was involved in the anti-apartheid struggle and returned from exile to work as Nelson Mandela’s economic advisor. He was later Vice President of the World Bank, founding director of the Oxford Martin School and now works as Professor of Globalization and Development…
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Lucy Neal is an artist, theatre maker, writer, celebrant and community activist. Steadfastly involved in the grassroots Transition movement in her beloved Tooting since 2008, in this encounter Lucy invites you to join her as she bikes through her community and marches through the streets of central London, exploring what it means to hold the grief,…
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Peace-pilgrim and former monk, Satish Kumar has been inspiring global change for over 50 years as an activist, author, editor and speaker, seeking to inform and inspire a just future for all. In this encounter he reflects on how his spiritual relationship with nature can teach us to be compassionate, how to be kind, how to be generous, how to be no…
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Shevaun Haviland is the Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce, responsible for representing British business in front of government, and around the world. An optimist who believes in vision and the power of positive thinking, Shevaun shares her passion for business as a force for good, her fundamental belief in community, and her dre…
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Kersten has worked in local government for over 30 years, most recently as Chief Executive of Bradford Council and previously in the same role for the City of York. She has worked across the voluntary and community sector, education and central government. As she approaches retirement from her current role, Kersten talks to us about her transformat…
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Gemma marks the winter solstice, and the tilt from darkness towards light, tucked up at home after a dawn foray into the Dartmoor squall. Reflecting on the year passing out and the one to come, she finds solace and encouragement in Six Ethical Maxims for a Marginally Livable Planet – the work of David Schenck and Larry R Churchill – one of the many…
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‘Bold Dreams: A journey for courageous leaders’ brought together 17 people from all four countries of the UK, all innovating in service of people and communities. Spanning different generations, public and private sectors and many walks of life, the group explored their visions for flourishing futures and the transformation they want to contribute …
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Every year, Yale’s International Leadership Center brings together the World Fellows, a group of extraordinary leaders from every continent to explore how to address the most acute and complex challenges facing the world today. In October 2022, New Constellations partnered with creative innovator, cultural entrepreneur and filmmaker Hrund Gunnstein…
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Casper is a creator of spiritual infrastructure for the future, something he builds to contain love, belonging, beauty, solidarity, joy … and lots of singing. He sees our disconnection from our spirituality as one of the great challenges of the 21st Century. And has found over and over again that the people who he wants to be like are often people …
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Surrounded by Samhain’s autumn leaves, Gemma recorded some reflections on the unseasonable warmth of this autumn, her recent conversations with leading thinkers, makers and doers across different sectors and what we can do to restore our lost connections. Made by Jo Barratt and Gemma Mortensen, with Iris Andrews, Lily Piachaud and Hadeel Elshak. Mu…
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What would a new economy that serves the future be, look and feel like? Who must be part of this new economy, and of making it happen? In September 2022, the funder collaborative Partners For A New Economy brought together 90 thinkers, funders and change-makers working in myriad ways across different places and systems to transform our economies. I…
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Gabriella sees the city as a travelling surface for new ideas, projects and public debates; alive on the surface with many worlds hidden in its folds. She says that we create our cities and then our cities in turn create us. As Chief Creative Officer for Mexico City, she led a team as varied as the city – bringing together urban geographers, data e…
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Rachel is a technology strategist, specialising in the social impact of new and emerging technologies. She has been working on the web since the nineties, when you had to make up your own job because it had never existed before. Today she runs Careful Industries; helping people understand the impact of the technologies they are creating and to depl…
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Robin believes that our blueprint as human beings is to be born in deep connection to nature, at ease with being a keystone species. The question he asks is not only how we can rebuild this connection, but how we lost it in the first place. He traces UK history to times during which our earth and land based cultures were destroyed, and asks what it…
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Gemma joins The Old Way, a year-long course tracing the migratory route of hunter-gatherers through the seasons - searching for food in the woods, along the coast to the seashore and over the moors. The experience invites us to learn from our ancient past to help shape better futures by exploring our own rewilding and how we can reconstitute the we…
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Andri Snær Magnason grew up with the wild Icelandic Highlands in his heart and soul. As a student of Nordic mythology he perceives that we are living through ‘mythic times’ such is the extent of the climatic and ecological change that we will see in a lifetime. As a writer, poet and director, and a father of four children, he finds words to help us…
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Goddur Magnússon has the gift of being able to spot and channel the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times. He does this by connecting to beauty, which he sees as his closest contact to the future. As a renowned Icelandic designer, teacher and grandfather-type, he says the best way to pass on his knowledge is to befriend his students and learn with the…
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Hrund is a creative innovator, cultural entrepreneur, filmmaker and dreamer. She believes fostering creative mindsets, original thought and diversity is the key to unlocking the infinite possibilities of human beings in today’s world. Author and co-director of the documentary INNSÆI – The Sea Within, Hrund is a passionate advocate for intuition and…
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Guy Singh-Watson is an organic farmer, entrepreneur and self-professed veg nerd, passionate about reinventing the food system. Founder of Riverford, Guy vowed not to allow the company to become driven purely by the bottom line, so in 2018 sold 74% of Riverford to its employees at about a third of the market value. Passionate about sharing his decad…
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Derek Bardowell is an author, award-winning charity leader, park runner, reimaginer and devoted dad. Once a music journalist and for many years a disruptive funder, Derek works at the intersections of race, culture and philanthropy and believes everyone has the right to feel at ease in themselves, in their bodies and in the places that they live. H…
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Farzana creates the capacity for transformation. Through the lens of her experience as a youth and community worker, a writer, a director and a leader of Healing Justice, she asks what it would take to envision abolition in our lifetime and to truly practise freedom. She works with communities to imagine and organise around visions that reimagine p…
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Sophy is a weaver of wisdom, traditions and the twin forces of will and love. An engineer and therapist by training, Sophy has spent a lifetime exploring how things work within us and around us. She believes that western culture has lost the rituals that help us come to terms with the fact that everything we love we will lose. As a founder of the t…
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Chagford is a small town on the north-eastern fringe of Dartmoor, in South West England. In 2019 the Parish Council declared a Climate and Ecological Emergency, following similar declarations by Government and councils all over the UK. Jo and Gemma helped Chagford Parish Council gather the views of residents for a community conversation about clima…
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This encounter takes a new form, a slow conversation between Dan Hill - Director of Strategic Design at Vinnova, the Swedish government's innovation agency and author of the Slowdown Papers - and New Constellation’s Gemma Mortensen. Their exchange - from the urban landscape of Stockholm to the wilds of Dartmoor - explores how to create the hybrid c…
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Gemma and Jo take a walk to reflect on the themes and patterns that have emerged from the first series of audio encounters and look ahead to the next series. The themes from this first series are explored in more detail in our blogs. Made by Jo Barratt. Conceived by Jo Barratt and Gemma Mortensen, with Iris Andrews and Lily Piachaud. Music is made …
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Candy Chang is an artist who creates public spaces through which people can connect with and share what it means to be human today. She explores how we can create more infrastructure for the soul - to reflect, to forgive, to atone and to see ourselves in each other. Having spent time bearing witness to the confessions of thousands of people around …
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Panthea’s work bridges perspectives, disciplines and divides. Without looking at the past and without healing from it, she believes we can never truly move forward. So, as a strategist, organizer and facilitator, Panthea helps people explore what type of solidarity can heal, nourish and liberate us and keep us alive to one another’s beauty and huma…
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Sheffield’s journey was an adventure into the future for a group of Sheffielders from all walks of life and all parts of the city in autumn 2021. Together they examined this moment in Sheffield’s history and the past that brought us here, and dreamed of a brighter future for the city they love: one that fully reflects the potential of Sheffield’s i…
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Yo-Yo Ma is an internationally renowned cellist and champion of culture’s power to transform lives. In moments of blissful musical flow, he experiences perfect equilibrium when his body becomes part of his mind. Fingers are like tiny brains, Yo-Yo says, they find their way into the sounds they want to hear. He calls for a second enlightenment in wh…
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Hilary is a gifted maker and a thinker, blessed with a formidable mind, deep heart and fierce passion. She thinks to make, and makes to think, and her craft is helping communities design their own solutions to the challenges they face. When Hilary works with people for the first time, she asks them to draw maps of their lives. Every map is a zig-za…
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Angel has a voice like medicine. It heals. He is a pioneer of the emerging field of healing-centred education - helping children and adults experience and channel the wisdom, pain and potential that resides in our bodies as well as our minds. In exploring his own heritage, he illuminates what is possible when we discover and act from a place of dee…
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Audrey is a poetician and Taiwan’s first Digital Minister. She sees herself as a digital migrant, having moved into the internet when she was 12 years old. The early makers of digital democracy in the 21st century, she says, are like the makers of reflecting telescopes in the 17th century. They are building digital spaces that are transparent like …
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Anna sees and thinks in patterns. As a child, she carried around a notebook and recorded things that changed and how things were related to each other. She explores what it is like to live guided by patterns - of the moon, of day and night, of the seasons. How to open ourselves up to the flow of the never-ending spirals we find in nature; in seeds,…
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Charles writes to help us rediscover our relationship with the earth – the relationship which has made us the shape that we are. There is, he says, no seam between us and the wild. His writing and teaching draws on biology, anthropology, theology, archaeology, philosophy, law and travel to probe the questions ‘who or what are we?’ and ‘what on eart…
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Aaron helps creative entrepreneurs break free from their past and set out on the journey of life before them. A celebrated social entrepreneur and arts educator, Aaron founded Sphinx to open up the world of classical music to young people of colour and was President Obama’s first nominee to the National Council on the Arts. The world is full of unf…
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Jane is a beautiful woman, light of voice and soul and steely of will and intention. Rod, her partner in love and work, has the magical ability to help young people return to themselves. As educators and storytellers, they work with cycles of nature to enable people to see and experience a deeper sense of self. They encourage people to return to a …
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adrienne communicates the power of vision. What would it take, she asks, to create a positive vision of the future that becomes our muscle memory; something so powerful that we act on it even when we are under pressure or when we are scared? She works with whatever is necessary to do that - words, pleasure, sci-fi, singing, birthing … to pose the q…
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On a dark night in December 2020, 15 people from across Barrow joined a voyage to discover Barrow’s new stars – Barrow’s New Constellation. This is their story, of the place they love and how the people of Barrow can build a brighter future. Made by Jo Barratt with Gemma Mortensen, Iris Andrews and Lily Piachaud. Music is made for Barrow’s New Cons…
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Geoff wonders what makes societies and institutions wise. Everything in our lives, he says, depends on systems beyond us. We depend on them for absolutely everything, our feelings and our thoughts. So what would a political philosophy look like that recognised our dependency on the world around us rather than asserting our sovereignty over it? Havi…
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Rob is a story-harvester, imagineer and sewer of inspiration, who collects and shares the chronicles of communities who have dared to ask ‘What If?’ and dared to do things differently. He lives with a ‘make your own’ spirit, spending time with people who are cracking on and building the future they dream of. A future that will fast be upon us. Thin…
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Poppy first saw a dead body at 27 when she decided to set up a funeral directors, one that helps us think differently about loss, grief and death. Death lurks in the shadows, haunting us. She works to bring death into clearer view; bearing witness to lives that have ended and the emotions of those who are saying goodbye. This is heart work, she say…
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Lonnie carries the deep well of history in his sparkling eyes and the deep resonance of his voice. He uses history as a tool to give us a fuller picture of who we are so that we can grapple with our past. As founder of the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, Lonnie curated the story of the USA's – and many other countries’ –…
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Margaret twinkles, the sparkle of a full life exploring her two passions: political science, for which she is famed, and Aboriginal art. Growing up in Baltimore in the 1960s, Margaret was taken on civil rights marches as a young girl and she is still marching now. Margaret shows us how we are living through the declining years of neoliberalism. It …
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