Utopia, imagination and spaces of hope

By: Lizzie Bird

In February 2026, I was delighted to join Folke to work on the Northern Futures Hub project and to become part of initiatives that actively create space for imagining better futures. 

From Futures Festival Tromsø at Tromsø city library, 21 February 2026. (Photo: Folke)

My route to Folke began in September 2025 at the Copenhagen Futures Festival, where I first met Lene and heard about Folke!  

For a brief moment in Copenhagen City Hall, a time portal opened, and around 80 participants were invited to travel to 2035. Through Ruth Ben Tovim’s Town Anywhere, we didn’t just talk about the future - we built it, together, with cardboard, string, tape... The activity became an opportunity to explore shared values and to be a rehearsal for a hopeful future at scale, and later an “archaeological site of the future” for others to explore.  

That experience stayed with me because it demonstrated how participation through doing can use imagination, shift mindsets and expand what people believe is possible.

Pictures from the event in Copenhagen. All photos: Lizzie Bird.

My background is in urban planning, urban design, and community engagement in London, and I am currently completing a Nordic Urban Planning Masters which is taught across Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. I am looking to focus on how creative methods, participatory processes, and futures thinking can empower communities to actively shape the places they live.  

“What happens when we stop trying to predict the future, and instead learn to co-create it?” asks Lizzie Bird.

Here at Futures Festival Tromsø, in Tromsø library.

Photo: Folke