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Drawn to Act
A project on hopeful futures
This project emerged in response to the floods that devastated my home region of Emilia-Romagna. Experiencing these events firsthand brought the realities of climate change and decades of environmental mismanagement into sharp focus, prompting me to question how we might respond to a future in which such events become increasingly frequent.
My research began by documenting the ways local communities came together in the aftermath of the floods. I also became involved with Bologna for Climate Justice (BCJ), a grassroots collective advocating for climate and social justice. While my initial focus was on disaster and recovery, I found myself increasingly drawn to the forms of care, solidarity, and collective action that emerged through these experiences and to how they might continue long after moments of crisis have passed.
As the project evolved, I realised that narratives centred solely on catastrophe left little room for possibility. A turning point came through the work of Rob Hopkins and his invitation to fall in love with the future. His ideas offered an alternative approach: rather than imagining only collapse, we might also cultivate hopeful futures and begin building them in the present.
This shift transformed the direction of the project. Instead of focusing on disaster alone, I began exploring collective imagination as a form of climate action. I became interested in the role that hopeful, shared visions can play in inspiring participation, strengthening communities, and opening new ways of thinking about the future.
Having already established a relationship with BCJ through participation and visual collaboration, I continued working closely with the collective throughout the project to put these ideas into practice.
I created a series of hand-drawn works that explore the role of images in shaping collective imagination. Rather than illustrating a fixed future, these drawings invite conversation, participation, and speculation. They propose that images can become spaces in which new possibilities are rehearsed before they are realised.
The project positions hand drawing as both a political and artistic gesture - one that values care, slowness, and human connection over technological or algorithmic representations.
This project has been profoundly shaped by the writings of Rob Hopkins and by conversations with artist James McKay.
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Collaborative and socially engaged illustration: using art to support community initiatives, raise awareness and communicate ideas around social justice and environmental issues
As the project developed, the process of visualisation and image-making also became a reflection on how these methods might be shared more widely. I realised that many activist groups and community initiatives are already imagining more just and sustainable futures, but often lack access to the visual tools or creative facilitation needed to make those ideas tangible and collective.
This led me to develop a methodology that could be adapted beyond the context of this research. The project evolved into a set of open, participatory approaches that invite communities to imagine, discuss and collectively shape desirable futures through drawing and visual storytelling.
The research culminated in the creation of a toolkit booklet designed for activists, community groups, educators, and organisations. Through a series of exercises for imagining futures, translating ideas into images, and mapping pathways towards change, the toolkit offers practical methods and templates that can be adopted, modified, and expanded according to different contexts and needs.
The toolkit is intended as a living resource, one that continues to evolve through collaboration, experimentation, and collective use. In this way, the project extends beyond the artwork itself, offering visual imagination as an accessible practice for building hopeful and actionable futures together.
