Roisin Markham

This week feels like I have lived two lifetimes, time and the bending of time has been well and truly practiced. In fact I’ve even become an official time traveller. Which finally makes sense of my recent ability to bend time and play with its elasticity.

Welcome to this weeks studio notes, this is a weekly reflection practice I’ve committed to doing for a year this is week 22 of 52. I write these, I don’t use AI to write my studio notes, the point is they are reflective, sometimes messy in storytelling. They are structured somewhat in – reflection, insights, a story for you , resources and a view to next week.

Reflection

I’m not sure where to start. My sense is in 2030 when I look back on the last week as a pivotal one. Here’s why:

Through the process of co-design BDT-Consultancy, my business partnered with Smart D8, the D8 community, international business partners and associates. Four days, in that neck of the woods, a distinctive part of Dublin if you’re honest with it, it changes you. The area stretches from Kilmainham, Inchicore and Islandbridge to the Liberties, Merchants Quay, the Coombe, Portobello and South Circular Road weirdly it also includes the Phoenix Park. It’s a place with much character, history and life in it. As we deepened our relationships with one another and the place, it kinda got in our bones.

One of the service design practices is to do a safari– it’s a walking observation or active research walk. One of our co-design crew called out it was a shocking term and not very co-design! Gosh they are so right so we have given it a D8 rebrand and from her on in be called having a goo!

I think that’s another act of decolonisation in the designers box. I really appreciated the call out on that one.

The challenge, not for now, only to say that where we landed was unexpected, shapeshifting when we left space for action, emergence, listening and co-sensing. The lived experience in the room refreshing, the honest advocacy of shocking reality from lived expertise, all deeply valued. Building trust designing with not at.

The feedback as I departed Thursdays evening from Dublin was that the work delivered was beyond expectations and people were very happy.

In those days there had been an exceptional request, adding further excitement from a Government department looking for an RFQ to support on alignment workshop design and facilitation, my kind of work. The shortness of lead in time made it challenging with limited time for preparation. I just did not have a day and a half available last week at drop of the hat notice time. I turned around a quote with a hurried couple of email exchanges, a 10 minute call into a quote of what I could offer preparation wise with the fact that I was traveling.

After all of that, I had a very nice thanks but not this time response. Was it a tyre-kicker request or I need 3 quotes ask? Who knows, I am choosing to suspend stories I could be telling myself and let it go. A no is a no, it was a very nice exchange and I’m grateful to have been invited to quote for the business.

I started receiving feedback from my Shared Ground: Irelands Civic Listening Pilot. If you read it or downloaded it, I note some have downloaded it – what did you think of it? Let me know.

Thursday evening I got home past 10pm, and prepped for leaving for the UK the following morning on a ferry at 7:30am. I’d not traveled by myself to the UK on sail & rail since the 1980s and a student. Really have to say it offers excellent value – you can sail from any Irish port to a train destination in the UK for under €60. That is amazing value and I’ve really enjoyed the slower travel mode. Not having a car seems like it’s a stressor but it’s freeing, I literally got off the train and caught continuous train connections to Shroud easily. Even thinking I was going to miss one connection as the train was delayed, happily arriving in Swindon to see the train still on platform 2 awaiting us. The tiny joy of a connected timely journey on a busy Friday evening commuter train.

I mentioned at the top of the post I’d officially become a time traveller. I’ve been playing with time travel and future ancestor work since I studied with Phoebe Tickell on the Tools for the Regenerative Renaissance course during COVID. In more recent years Joanna Macy’s work, the Welsh Future Generation Act and Rob Hopkins have been inspirational. I’m a huge fan of Rob’s What If podcast, listed in resources.

Some months ago he was talking about his new book, How to Fall in Love with the Future and announced training in a place called Hawkswood. I booked it as soon as I could excited at the possibility of training to be a time traveller.

I have to say it has been a weekend of resourcing myself in ways I did nt know I needed. The extraordinary group including Rob were amazing to learn, explore, travel to 2030 with, create cocktail scents of the future, listen deeply, laugh, cry and find deep connection between us.

Hawkswood is a Centre for Future Thinking, has a community farm, a distinctive cleansing water pond system and astonishing old trees. A yellow sandstone building of generous rooms, with deeply fragrant roses, a delicious kitchen, kind staff and cats. A place of ecological awareness, education and art.

Saturday evening we got to listen to some field recordings from the future, work Rob collaborates with an ambient sound artist Mr Kitt on. They are magical and I wanted to listen to them immediately again after they were over. Links in the resources later.

On Sunday morning we got to meet two of the women behind Wales first time machine built in The Bannau Brycheiniog National Park (BBNP). An astonishing story of public policy making, recentering children’s voices. They spoke about making a honey pot experience.

BBNP in Wales is one of the UK’s fifteen national parks (it was formerly known as the Brecon Beacons National Park). It covers 520 square miles of some of the most spectacular landscapes in the country, whose sweeping grandeur is attested to by the millions of people who visit it every year. It is home to 33,000 people, their work, customs and foods, as well as to gorges and waterfalls, caves and sink holes, limestone pavements, open uplands, small woodlands, rivers, lakes, farmed landscapes, hedgerows, country lanes, stonewalls and the many elements that make up the landscape.

i am

very grateful for the IEN and Feasta for supporting and restoring my learning journey to Hawkswood.

There is so much to say about what we did and how we did it, the facilitation and care were excellent. Rob delivers with such joy and flow, he’s very brilliant making participation… simple, easy, inviting and fun. My level of playfun and enjoyment were off the chart for the whole weekend. He is a master of flow, storytelling and invitational curiosity.

Insights

Trust the process of co-design and trust again.

Beware of distractions disguised as opportunities even when your bias is to say yes.

It would have been great to win that complex alignment workshop design and facilitation as I have a lot of availability in June. Was there anything else I could have done to win the work? Yes perhaps but I could not drop everything.

No lived experience in the room means you are not in co-design.

This journey to the UK is the first time I’ve solo traveled abroad in years, it’s reminded me I like to travel and even more I love to meet people doing amazing things, and I did.

The training in Hawkswood with Rob Hopkins is the first time I really understood what it might mean to be a Time Traveller. I have always had the ability to time travel even before I knew that’s what it was called. Now perhaps I am part of an emergent movement of positive futurists an imagination activist.

I was deeply struck by the impact images, culture and art are within Robs story. In particular a t-shirt he saw someone wearing that read “I’ve been to the future and we won”.

You can check the real image here it is in its way building on the inspiration and is an iconic image of our time.

A question for you?

What if time was bendable? Have you ever had that experience where you have lived more than a day in one day? More than 12 hours in a 2 hour workshop? Or an expansive feeling of time?

What if our current understanding of time was the result of colonist tools? What if the work of the Black Quantum Futurists could change our futures to be ones of flourishing within planetary boundaries?

I’ve not read Robs new book yet, but it’s in my bag as I travel home. I’m going to relish it. There will be more about this as I integrate last week and the weekend.

They say never meet your hero’s but that’s a loada bollocks, make sure the hero’s you pick are worth meeting.

The play was at serious level 10. Gosh I loved it.

Resources

Rob Hopkins website, Field Recordings From the Future crowdfunder, From What if to what next podcast and recommend his newsletter, The Time Travellers Gazette also.

I found myself speaking about Wildminds Festival in Fenit County Kerry in Dublin and thought I would share these amazing talks here:

This one of Tralee Bay preceded my talk on Doughnut Economics.

Also check out Sean Ronayne’s talk on Wildlife Sounds before he went stratospheric with Bird Song.

There is a talk on Corvids I particularly like also, have a look on the WildMinds youtube channel for more.

The festival did not run this year, talking a break due to some development work at the harbour, look out for it next year, for such a small place it’s a mighty thing.

A view to the week ahead

As I hurtle towards Fishguard on a train for an overnight ferry crossing the week ahead will be what it is. Sleep. Integration, composting, wrapping up my part in the co-design, creating a playbook for further projects. There’s also a new piece of work to kick off and a creative submission deadline. The later is half written and I knew this weekend would shift my thinking on it. It’s deadline is tomorrow.

Then there is a matter of getting work booked in for June and July – so let me know if you need a strategic consultant I’m available for onsite or remote work. I specialise in relational design, facilitation, stakeholder management and program management.

Have a great week.