Invitations to Better Worlds
Invitations to Better Worlds
Organization
Organization
Organization
Team
Team
Team
Years
Years
Years
Role
Role
Role
Department of Imaginary Affairs
Department of Imaginary Affairs
Department of Imaginary Affairs
Morgan Bath, Jennifer Chan, & Mathura Mahendren
Morgan Bath, Jennifer Chan, & Mathura Mahendren
Morgan Bath, Jennifer Chan, & Mathura Mahendren
2025 – present
2025 – present
2025 – present
Co-lead. Installation design, participant materials, and synthesis of gathered input.
Co-lead. Installation design, participant materials, and synthesis of gathered input.
Co-lead. Installation design, participant materials, and synthesis of gathered input.
Overview
Overview
Conferences are built to fill your mind. You move from session to session, absorbing more than you can hold, checking email in whatever gaps remain. Public spaces are built for everyone and, often, for no one in particular: full of information, short on invitations to look up.
Invitations to Better Worlds starts somewhere else. It is the Department of Imaginary Affairs' framework for public futures practice, and its first offer is always the same. Pause.
The name is deliberate on all three counts.
Invitation, because what we extend is an offering. You can accept it or decline it, and declining is a real option rather than a polite fiction.
Better, because better is subjective. What improves one life may not improve another. So we say what we mean by it in a given context, and we invite you to affirm it, challenge it, or build on it.
Worlds, plural, because we share a planet but not an experience of it. Geography, class, gender, race, and ability shape which world a person is actually living in. We treat that as a point of curiosity rather than a threat.
Every invitation is a place to practice one or more of four skills:
Telling the truth. Naming what is actually happening, in our bodies, relationships, institutions, and systems, even when it is inconvenient.
Holding and metabolizing contradictions. Staying present when opposing truths exist at once.
Weaving the micro and the macro. Connecting personal experience to broader systems, histories, and power.
Practicing curiosity. Staying open, to ourselves and to others, even when we feel certain.
The work takes two forms: gathering as practice, and installation as practice. What follows is the second.
Invitations to Better Worlds began as a project between Jennifer Chan and me. As it developed, we recognized it was describing something larger than itself: the shape of how DIA already worked across its programs, gatherings, and engagements. Mathura Mahendren joined at that point, and was instrumental in folding DIA's wider practices into the framework and weaving the two into one thing.
Conferences are built to fill your mind. You move from session to session, absorbing more than you can hold, checking email in whatever gaps remain. Public spaces are built for everyone and, often, for no one in particular: full of information, short on invitations to look up.
Invitations to Better Worlds starts somewhere else. It is the Department of Imaginary Affairs' framework for public futures practice, and its first offer is always the same. Pause.
The name is deliberate on all three counts.
Invitation, because what we extend is an offering. You can accept it or decline it, and declining is a real option rather than a polite fiction.
Better, because better is subjective. What improves one life may not improve another. So we say what we mean by it in a given context, and we invite you to affirm it, challenge it, or build on it.
Worlds, plural, because we share a planet but not an experience of it. Geography, class, gender, race, and ability shape which world a person is actually living in. We treat that as a point of curiosity rather than a threat.
Every invitation is a place to practice one or more of four skills:
Telling the truth. Naming what is actually happening, in our bodies, relationships, institutions, and systems, even when it is inconvenient.
Holding and metabolizing contradictions. Staying present when opposing truths exist at once.
Weaving the micro and the macro. Connecting personal experience to broader systems, histories, and power.
Practicing curiosity. Staying open, to ourselves and to others, even when we feel certain.
The work takes two forms: gathering as practice, and installation as practice. What follows is the second.
Invitations to Better Worlds began as a project between Jennifer Chan and me. As it developed, we recognized it was describing something larger than itself: the shape of how DIA already worked across its programs, gatherings, and engagements. Mathura Mahendren joined at that point, and was instrumental in folding DIA's wider practices into the framework and weaving the two into one thing.
Conferences are built to fill your mind. You move from session to session, absorbing more than you can hold, checking email in whatever gaps remain. Public spaces are built for everyone and, often, for no one in particular: full of information, short on invitations to look up.
Invitations to Better Worlds starts somewhere else. It is the Department of Imaginary Affairs' framework for public futures practice, and its first offer is always the same. Pause.
The name is deliberate on all three counts.
Invitation, because what we extend is an offering. You can accept it or decline it, and declining is a real option rather than a polite fiction.
Better, because better is subjective. What improves one life may not improve another. So we say what we mean by it in a given context, and we invite you to affirm it, challenge it, or build on it.
Worlds, plural, because we share a planet but not an experience of it. Geography, class, gender, race, and ability shape which world a person is actually living in. We treat that as a point of curiosity rather than a threat.
Every invitation is a place to practice one or more of four skills:
Telling the truth. Naming what is actually happening, in our bodies, relationships, institutions, and systems, even when it is inconvenient.
Holding and metabolizing contradictions. Staying present when opposing truths exist at once.
Weaving the micro and the macro. Connecting personal experience to broader systems, histories, and power.
Practicing curiosity. Staying open, to ourselves and to others, even when we feel certain.
The work takes two forms: gathering as practice, and installation as practice. What follows is the second.
Invitations to Better Worlds began as a project between Jennifer Chan and me. As it developed, we recognized it was describing something larger than itself: the shape of how DIA already worked across its programs, gatherings, and engagements. Mathura Mahendren joined at that point, and was instrumental in folding DIA's wider practices into the framework and weaving the two into one thing.
My Role
My Role
I co-lead Invitations to Better Worlds with Jennifer Chan, DIA's founder, working alongside Mathura Mahendren on the project team.
Design and development. I designed the Practice Space Workbook, the installation materials, the participant-facing prompts, and the outreach graphics. Much of the work is translating the framework into physical and digital forms people can use with no facilitator standing beside them.
Research and synthesis. I design the participatory instruments that gather community input as qualitative data, and synthesize what comes back into signals, trends, and scenarios that shape the next iteration.
Delivery. I co-lead installation delivery across conference and community contexts, and manage the logistics, documentation, and coordination that let two community sites run at once.
I co-lead Invitations to Better Worlds with Jennifer Chan, DIA's founder, working alongside Mathura Mahendren on the project team.
Design and development. I designed the Practice Space Workbook, the installation materials, the participant-facing prompts, and the outreach graphics. Much of the work is translating the framework into physical and digital forms people can use with no facilitator standing beside them.
Research and synthesis. I design the participatory instruments that gather community input as qualitative data, and synthesize what comes back into signals, trends, and scenarios that shape the next iteration.
Delivery. I co-lead installation delivery across conference and community contexts, and manage the logistics, documentation, and coordination that let two community sites run at once.
I co-lead Invitations to Better Worlds with Jennifer Chan, DIA's founder, working alongside Mathura Mahendren on the project team.
Design and development. I designed the Practice Space Workbook, the installation materials, the participant-facing prompts, and the outreach graphics. Much of the work is translating the framework into physical and digital forms people can use with no facilitator standing beside them.
Research and synthesis. I design the participatory instruments that gather community input as qualitative data, and synthesize what comes back into signals, trends, and scenarios that shape the next iteration.
Delivery. I co-lead installation delivery across conference and community contexts, and manage the logistics, documentation, and coordination that let two community sites run at once.
Iterations
Iterations
Community gatherings and shared dinners, 2025
Before any of it was an installation, it was a series of gatherings and shared dinners where people talked about what futures work actually costs them. Grief, labour, exhaustion, and a stubborn kind of hope kept surfacing. Those conversations became the foundation for everything that followed.
Before any of it was an installation, it was a series of gatherings and shared dinners where people talked about what futures work actually costs them. Grief, labour, exhaustion, and a stubborn kind of hope kept surfacing. Those conversations became the foundation for everything that followed.
Before any of it was an installation, it was a series of gatherings and shared dinners where people talked about what futures work actually costs them. Grief, labour, exhaustion, and a stubborn kind of hope kept surfacing. Those conversations became the foundation for everything that followed.
APF Future of Creativity & Compassion Conference
Toronto, 2025
The first installation was sixteen invitations, distributed across the conference. Each was a QR code leading to one exercise: a moment to step out of the programming and reflect. Each offered a solo practice or asked you to find another person and do it together.
They were grouped by theme, and every one of them ended with a closing, a short meditation, rhythmic tapping, something to bring you back to the space. We were asking people real questions about the future, and leaving someone open and raw in the middle of a conference is not care. The closings are what made the asking responsible.
Toronto, 2025
The first installation was sixteen invitations, distributed across the conference. Each was a QR code leading to one exercise: a moment to step out of the programming and reflect. Each offered a solo practice or asked you to find another person and do it together.
They were grouped by theme, and every one of them ended with a closing, a short meditation, rhythmic tapping, something to bring you back to the space. We were asking people real questions about the future, and leaving someone open and raw in the middle of a conference is not care. The closings are what made the asking responsible.
Toronto, 2025
The first installation was sixteen invitations, distributed across the conference. Each was a QR code leading to one exercise: a moment to step out of the programming and reflect. Each offered a solo practice or asked you to find another person and do it together.
They were grouped by theme, and every one of them ended with a closing, a short meditation, rhythmic tapping, something to bring you back to the space. We were asking people real questions about the future, and leaving someone open and raw in the middle of a conference is not care. The closings are what made the asking responsible.
What we learned. We were too quiet.
The invitations were designed as gentle interruptions, and gentleness turned out to be the wrong instrument for a conference. People are overstimulated, moving between sessions, deciding constantly what deserves their attention. A small quiet offer does not survive that environment. Plenty of people saw the invitations. Only a handful found all sixteen and worked through them fully, and we heard afterwards that more had engaged than we were ever able to count.
So the lesson was not that we needed more physical room. It was that we needed to be bolder, and to make an offer visible enough to compete with everything else asking to be noticed.
What we learned. We were too quiet.
The invitations were designed as gentle interruptions, and gentleness turned out to be the wrong instrument for a conference. People are overstimulated, moving between sessions, deciding constantly what deserves their attention. A small quiet offer does not survive that environment. Plenty of people saw the invitations. Only a handful found all sixteen and worked through them fully, and we heard afterwards that more had engaged than we were ever able to count.
So the lesson was not that we needed more physical room. It was that we needed to be bolder, and to make an offer visible enough to compete with everything else asking to be noticed.
What we learned. We were too quiet.
The invitations were designed as gentle interruptions, and gentleness turned out to be the wrong instrument for a conference. People are overstimulated, moving between sessions, deciding constantly what deserves their attention. A small quiet offer does not survive that environment. Plenty of people saw the invitations. Only a handful found all sixteen and worked through them fully, and we heard afterwards that more had engaged than we were ever able to count.
So the lesson was not that we needed more physical room. It was that we needed to be bolder, and to make an offer visible enough to compete with everything else asking to be noticed.
RSD14 Arcs of Impact
Toronto, 2025 — 250+ participants
We took up space.
Instead of distributing invitations across a venue, we built one. A physical room off the dining area, with couches, closer to a living room than an installation. A place to decompress inside a conference that does not otherwise let you rest.
We also cut the prompts to three.
What is your body telling you right now? Conferences are almost entirely intellectual environments. This was a way of asking people to arrive in their bodies before answering anything else.
Toronto, 2025 — 250+ participants
We took up space.
Instead of distributing invitations across a venue, we built one. A physical room off the dining area, with couches, closer to a living room than an installation. A place to decompress inside a conference that does not otherwise let you rest.
We also cut the prompts to three.
What is your body telling you right now? Conferences are almost entirely intellectual environments. This was a way of asking people to arrive in their bodies before answering anything else.
Toronto, 2025 — 250+ participants
We took up space.
Instead of distributing invitations across a venue, we built one. A physical room off the dining area, with couches, closer to a living room than an installation. A place to decompress inside a conference that does not otherwise let you rest.
We also cut the prompts to three.
What is your body telling you right now? Conferences are almost entirely intellectual environments. This was a way of asking people to arrive in their bodies before answering anything else.
Mathura Mahendren joined the project at this point. This is also the iteration the Practice Space Workbook was built for, collecting the practices from the APF invitations so the reflection could continue after someone left the room.
Mathura Mahendren joined the project at this point. This is also the iteration the Practice Space Workbook was built for, collecting the practices from the APF invitations so the reflection could continue after someone left the room.
What we learned. Two things, both about permission.
The first surprised us. When we were in the space animating it, fewer people came in. When the space sat on its own, people stayed longer and did more. Our presence read as supervision, or as a conversation someone would have to join.
Mathura Mahendren joined the project at this point. This is also the iteration the Practice Space Workbook was built for, collecting the practices from the APF invitations so the reflection could continue after someone left the room.
What we learned. Two things, both about permission.
The first surprised us. When we were in the space animating it, fewer people came in. When the space sat on its own, people stayed longer and did more. Our presence read as supervision, or as a conversation someone would have to join.
What we learned. Two things, both about permission.
The first surprised us. When we were in the space animating it, fewer people came in. When the space sat on its own, people stayed longer and did more. Our presence read as supervision, or as a conversation someone would have to join.
The second was the same problem wearing different clothes. The room looked comfortable, and comfort inside a conference venue tends to read as reserved for somebody else. People hesitated at the edge because nothing had told them they were allowed. Making an invitation feel welcoming is not the same as making it feel permitted. We had solved for the first and assumed the second.
The second was the same problem wearing different clothes. The room looked comfortable, and comfort inside a conference venue tends to read as reserved for somebody else. People hesitated at the edge because nothing had told them they were allowed. Making an invitation feel welcoming is not the same as making it feel permitted. We had solved for the first and assumed the second.
The second was the same problem wearing different clothes. The room looked comfortable, and comfort inside a conference venue tends to read as reserved for somebody else. People hesitated at the edge because nothing had told them they were allowed. Making an invitation feel welcoming is not the same as making it feel permitted. We had solved for the first and assumed the second.
Village as Practice
Jane and Finch neighbourhood and The Village @ Black Creek, Toronto — May 2026 to present
This iteration is still running. What follows describes work in progress.
Village as Practice moves the work out of conferences and back toward where it began: time spent with communities, closer to those first shared dinners than to a symposium floor.
It also changes what the work is for. The conference installations were invitations to reflect. This one is that, and something more — a research instrument, and our first attempt to gather enough responses across enough different communities to begin seeing patterns in how people imagine better worlds.
The question at the centre is simple. What does village mean to you? Not the idea of village. Yours. The specific tangle of people, places, histories, and hopes you carry; the roots planted before you arrived, the communities you built along the way, the bonds that migrate with you across distance and time.
Two sites, chosen for their difference. This started as a project with The Village @ Black Creek, a living history museum. But a museum draws visitors from far and wide, and although The Village sits inside the Jane and Finch neighbourhood, most of the people walking through it are not from it. So we added two installations in the neighbourhood itself, in places where we could actually meet the people who live there.
The result is two very different populations answering identical questions. That contrast is the point.
Visitors are invited to respond three ways, each a different way of naming where they are.
Jane and Finch neighbourhood and The Village @ Black Creek, Toronto — May 2026 to present
This iteration is still running. What follows describes work in progress.
Village as Practice moves the work out of conferences and back toward where it began: time spent with communities, closer to those first shared dinners than to a symposium floor.
It also changes what the work is for. The conference installations were invitations to reflect. This one is that, and something more — a research instrument, and our first attempt to gather enough responses across enough different communities to begin seeing patterns in how people imagine better worlds.
The question at the centre is simple. What does village mean to you? Not the idea of village. Yours. The specific tangle of people, places, histories, and hopes you carry; the roots planted before you arrived, the communities you built along the way, the bonds that migrate with you across distance and time.
Two sites, chosen for their difference. This started as a project with The Village @ Black Creek, a living history museum. But a museum draws visitors from far and wide, and although The Village sits inside the Jane and Finch neighbourhood, most of the people walking through it are not from it. So we added two installations in the neighbourhood itself, in places where we could actually meet the people who live there.
The result is two very different populations answering identical questions. That contrast is the point.
Visitors are invited to respond three ways, each a different way of naming where they are.
Jane and Finch neighbourhood and The Village @ Black Creek, Toronto — May 2026 to present
This iteration is still running. What follows describes work in progress.
Village as Practice moves the work out of conferences and back toward where it began: time spent with communities, closer to those first shared dinners than to a symposium floor.
It also changes what the work is for. The conference installations were invitations to reflect. This one is that, and something more — a research instrument, and our first attempt to gather enough responses across enough different communities to begin seeing patterns in how people imagine better worlds.
The question at the centre is simple. What does village mean to you? Not the idea of village. Yours. The specific tangle of people, places, histories, and hopes you carry; the roots planted before you arrived, the communities you built along the way, the bonds that migrate with you across distance and time.
Two sites, chosen for their difference. This started as a project with The Village @ Black Creek, a living history museum. But a museum draws visitors from far and wide, and although The Village sits inside the Jane and Finch neighbourhood, most of the people walking through it are not from it. So we added two installations in the neighbourhood itself, in places where we could actually meet the people who live there.
The result is two very different populations answering identical questions. That contrast is the point.
Visitors are invited to respond three ways, each a different way of naming where they are.
Where do you find yourself? A coloured dot placed on a two-axis map. How does the future feel right now — compelling, daunting, somewhere in between? And how much do you believe your own actions shape what comes next?
Where do you find yourself? A coloured dot placed on a two-axis map. How does the future feel right now — compelling, daunting, somewhere in between? And how much do you believe your own actions shape what comes next?
Where do you find yourself? A coloured dot placed on a two-axis map. How does the future feel right now — compelling, daunting, somewhere in between? And how much do you believe your own actions shape what comes next?
What are you noticing? A Venn diagram holding two questions at once: what makes imagining better worlds feel worthwhile, and what makes it feel impossible. After naming both, you write a letter to the future. To a person, a place, a community, or a version of yourself. Or, if writing is not your form, you pick up a phone and leave it as a voice message. Not all stories are meant to be written down.
What are you noticing? A Venn diagram holding two questions at once: what makes imagining better worlds feel worthwhile, and what makes it feel impossible. After naming both, you write a letter to the future. To a person, a place, a community, or a version of yourself. Or, if writing is not your form, you pick up a phone and leave it as a voice message. Not all stories are meant to be written down.
What are you noticing? A Venn diagram holding two questions at once: what makes imagining better worlds feel worthwhile, and what makes it feel impossible. After naming both, you write a letter to the future. To a person, a place, a community, or a version of yourself. Or, if writing is not your form, you pick up a phone and leave it as a voice message. Not all stories are meant to be written down.
What do you feel? Name an emotion, write about what is bringing it up, and place your response in one of two boxes: one for people who believe their actions affect our collective future, one for people who do not. Over four months, the boxes become a visible picture of how two communities are holding the future.
What do you feel? Name an emotion, write about what is bringing it up, and place your response in one of two boxes: one for people who believe their actions affect our collective future, one for people who do not. Over four months, the boxes become a visible picture of how two communities are holding the future.
What do you feel? Name an emotion, write about what is bringing it up, and place your response in one of two boxes: one for people who believe their actions affect our collective future, one for people who do not. Over four months, the boxes become a visible picture of how two communities are holding the future.
Every response has a digital equivalent, so people can take part without being physically present.
Where we are now. Collection continues at both sites through the end of August. We have run a small workshop with our two Artists-in-Residence and residents from Jane and Finch, sharing the installations, the research behind them, and what has surfaced so far. Once collection closes we go deep into the material, bring the patterns we find to the artists, and their works go up in September at The Village @ Black Creek, opening to the public on September 27, 2026, when The Village opens its doors freely in honour of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, with both artists present.
The artists are not translating data into art. They are listening deeply, sitting with contradiction, and letting what communities shared shape something new.
What we are learning. The volume first. Far more is coming in than we have handled before, and the work of organizing it is its own design problem.
The second lesson is quieter and matters more. The installation at The Village @ Black Creek is not always animated, there is not always someone there, while the Jane and Finch installations only go up when someone is present. That difference shows in the data. Unattended responses have to be held with more caution: we cannot always tell who left them, in what spirit, or whether one person filled out several. The attended responses are far more reliable, because someone was there to explain the question and see who answered it.
That is not an argument for always staffing an installation. It is an argument for knowing which of your data you can lean on, and being honest in the analysis about which is which.
Where it goes. We want this to be repeatable. Each installation would carry its own participatory elements, shaped by where it lands, while the core questions we settled on at RSD14 stay constant across all of them. Gathered across enough places, that consistency is what turns individual responses into something you can actually read patterns in: a growing picture of how different communities imagine the future, and what they believe about their own power to shape it.
Where that leads, we do not know yet. It is the most interesting question the project has raised so far.
Every response has a digital equivalent, so people can take part without being physically present.
Where we are now. Collection continues at both sites through the end of August. We have run a small workshop with our two Artists-in-Residence and residents from Jane and Finch, sharing the installations, the research behind them, and what has surfaced so far. Once collection closes we go deep into the material, bring the patterns we find to the artists, and their works go up in September at The Village @ Black Creek, opening to the public on September 27, 2026, when The Village opens its doors freely in honour of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, with both artists present.
The artists are not translating data into art. They are listening deeply, sitting with contradiction, and letting what communities shared shape something new.
What we are learning. The volume first. Far more is coming in than we have handled before, and the work of organizing it is its own design problem.
The second lesson is quieter and matters more. The installation at The Village @ Black Creek is not always animated, there is not always someone there, while the Jane and Finch installations only go up when someone is present. That difference shows in the data. Unattended responses have to be held with more caution: we cannot always tell who left them, in what spirit, or whether one person filled out several. The attended responses are far more reliable, because someone was there to explain the question and see who answered it.
That is not an argument for always staffing an installation. It is an argument for knowing which of your data you can lean on, and being honest in the analysis about which is which.
Where it goes. We want this to be repeatable. Each installation would carry its own participatory elements, shaped by where it lands, while the core questions we settled on at RSD14 stay constant across all of them. Gathered across enough places, that consistency is what turns individual responses into something you can actually read patterns in: a growing picture of how different communities imagine the future, and what they believe about their own power to shape it.
Where that leads, we do not know yet. It is the most interesting question the project has raised so far.
Every response has a digital equivalent, so people can take part without being physically present.
Where we are now. Collection continues at both sites through the end of August. We have run a small workshop with our two Artists-in-Residence and residents from Jane and Finch, sharing the installations, the research behind them, and what has surfaced so far. Once collection closes we go deep into the material, bring the patterns we find to the artists, and their works go up in September at The Village @ Black Creek, opening to the public on September 27, 2026, when The Village opens its doors freely in honour of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, with both artists present.
The artists are not translating data into art. They are listening deeply, sitting with contradiction, and letting what communities shared shape something new.
What we are learning. The volume first. Far more is coming in than we have handled before, and the work of organizing it is its own design problem.
The second lesson is quieter and matters more. The installation at The Village @ Black Creek is not always animated, there is not always someone there, while the Jane and Finch installations only go up when someone is present. That difference shows in the data. Unattended responses have to be held with more caution: we cannot always tell who left them, in what spirit, or whether one person filled out several. The attended responses are far more reliable, because someone was there to explain the question and see who answered it.
That is not an argument for always staffing an installation. It is an argument for knowing which of your data you can lean on, and being honest in the analysis about which is which.
Where it goes. We want this to be repeatable. Each installation would carry its own participatory elements, shaped by where it lands, while the core questions we settled on at RSD14 stay constant across all of them. Gathered across enough places, that consistency is what turns individual responses into something you can actually read patterns in: a growing picture of how different communities imagine the future, and what they believe about their own power to shape it.
Where that leads, we do not know yet. It is the most interesting question the project has raised so far.
The Practice Space Workbook
Created for the RSD14 installation and developed out of what we learned at APF, the workbook lets the reflection continue after someone leaves the room.
Created for the RSD14 installation and developed out of what we learned at APF, the workbook lets the reflection continue after someone leaves the room.
Created for the RSD14 installation and developed out of what we learned at APF, the workbook lets the reflection continue after someone leaves the room.
This portal is an invitation to practice getting to better worlds. It affirms that imagination is not an escape — it is resistance, refusal, and radical possibility.
This portal is an invitation to practice getting to better worlds. It affirms that imagination is not an escape — it is resistance, refusal, and radical possibility.
This portal is an invitation to practice getting to better worlds. It affirms that imagination is not an escape — it is resistance, refusal, and radical possibility.
There is no correct way to use it. Take what is useful and leave the rest.
There is no correct way to use it. Take what is useful and leave the rest.
There is no correct way to use it. Take what is useful and leave the rest.
