Imagining a hub with CEMUS
It is very important to see beyond our days and our minds if we are to ensure well-being in our societies. Therefore, during the Autumn of 2023, the SPARC team from Oslo Metropolitan University, accompanied by the university pro-rector, and senior advisors, visited Centre for Environmental and Development Studies (CEMUS), at Uppsala University in Sweden. The goal was to get inspired by the forms of interdisciplinarity that exist in their structures and to get to know each other, exchange knowledge and co-create visions for meeting places at both universities to nurture care for the environment and society.
As it takes 7 hours to get from Oslo to Uppsala, SARC decided to organize short workshops during the train ride. From the workshops, we got to know each other better, shared our expectations and discussed what we would do during the study trip in Uppsala
Collective imagination…
Stories. Our lives are stories. And each one of them creates a different story. We can help each other to make stories. For the second part of the workshop, the participants were split into three groups and asked to describe and create a vision of a future meeting place at the university. The results are three imaginary meeting places, presented through posters made by the two groups. The participants could take inspiration from the previous exercise about good conversations and let that inform their vision. What happens if we use a house as a symbol of a meeting place? The next three pages show the characteristics of the spaces that were created by participants, using a storyline to describe them…
Conversations….
We are all relational beings who depend on communication with one another. Discussions and conversations give us new perspectives and broaden our horizons. However, communication can be challenging and we are often faced with barriers. The first exercise during the workshop at CEMUS was to remember a particularly good conversation we have had with someone in our lives, share it, and identify what exactly made it a good conversation. Here are the keywords of what constitutes a good conversation. These words demonstrate what would be the ideal premises for a future new meeting place at our universities.
Break the walls…
Imagine you are a wolf. A lonely wolf enters a community. How would you feel? It is not easy to find a place where you feel welcomed and heard. However, there is such a place. There is a house, close to the river, where everyone can come. They tore the walls open so everyone could see inside. At some point in life, we might find out that we need to re-learn things and remember what we have done, and we might need help to remember. People in this house listen and share their knowledge, so everything that happens inside the house, in some form, also happens outside. In the cosy environment, surrounded by beautiful plants and bookshelves, blankets and “just right” music, people drink tea, and make drawings and food. Once you have been here, you are full of energy to run out and spread the word with full support. Remember, you can always come back. We sometimes become wolves, and sometimes not. It’s life.
House filled with events, music and deep discussions…
Welcome to the house, where different thoughts are all over the place, and people share them, they talk, and that helps them to shape their thoughts. In this place, people express themselves and are open to deep discussions. They believe the future can exist thanks to planting, nurturing and growing on both conceptual and practical levels. People here have fun doing what they love, and they grow through learning and discussing. Only a short while ago, there was a storm which brought big clouds. People sat in their houses behind large windows and thought if they could imagine that the clouds were thoughts and they could travel around the world and other people could see them.
Hobbitor – the Shire incubator…
We would like to introduce you to the space with no sharp edges. A place that sustains and rejuvenates, is safe, and people there work with colours and art. There are no corners and the rooms are very organic and very soft. People love to work in teams here, and they love to remember things. By sharing their memories, they create new knowledge and embrace good things from the past for bright futures. They managed to design an overhead projector, that can remember too. Together, they create new ideas from amazing things that already exist with us in this world…
Author – Simona Brozmanová