Since 2020 I have been developing a new collaborative practice around the theme of R/Evolution 5.0. In a world that is being rapidly transformed by the combined forces of a technology revolution, climate change and a growing desire for social justice, I am exploring what new economic and social systems are required if we are all to flourish. A manifesto exploring early ideas and developed with like-minded thinkers and doers can be found here.
The Work Project
What does a good working life look like in this century and what new forms of organisation are required to make it possible? Over the last three years I have been exploring these questions with workers from all walks of life – grave-diggers, carers, nuclear weapon makers, artists, consultants, teachers and more – in England, Scotland and the United States.
Through hundreds of conversations at a series of design imaginings, I have heard clearly what matters to people today: what constitutes meaningful work; a longing for care; a re-imagining of time; of play; a new role for business leaders and new forms of work organisation that might capitalise local economies. I have recorded some of the early imaginings in a series of blogs and in 2024 I will be writing a book about my experience and these new worker generated ideas, whilst exploring how we might move the thinking into practice.
Radical Care
Our connections to one another and to the wider eco-systems of which we are part is a complex, beautiful, if sometimes difficult part of what it is to be human. ‘Care’ however has been reduced in public discourse to a set of narrow debates about an industrial service: transactional, expensive and in crisis. Through writing and making I am exploring how we create new forms of care and connection in our lives and communities. This project extends ideas I developed in Radical Help, exploring the connections between formal and informal care and proposing new forms of care work that would constitute a new economy and practice of care. I’m an advisor to the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on the care economy.
Radical Help
I have been humbled and overwhelmed in equal measure by the reaction to Radical Help. It has not been possible to respond to all the requests for help from those who want to implement the ideas but I am honoured to continue to work in partnership with communities and local government in the UK. I am also working in collaboration with municipalities in Scandinavia and collaborate with the Scandinavian Relational Welfare Institute that has been established to extend the Radical Help principles through new practice in Norway and Denmark. I have reflected on some of this work here.
If you would like to support any aspect of this work, or if you would like to host a future experiment please connect with me here.