To Build a Better World, We Have To Imagine It First
“Imagination turns Brown bombers into terrorists and white bombers into mentally ill victims. Imagination gives us borders, gives us superiority, gives us race as an indicator of ability. …I often feel I am trapped inside someone else's imagination, and I must engage my own imagination in order to break free.”
adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
The world as we know it is killing us. All of us. The rich, the poor, the haves and the have-nots. It is hitting the most unprotected of us first, Black and Indigenous people, people of color, gender minorities, LGBTQ+ folx, people living with disabilities, and so on.
But those with power will not escape. The climate crisis, the growing violence in our cities, the fact that it is harder than ever to get resources like fresh food and clean water? If we do not change, this world is going to get worse for all of us.
Luckily, this world did not come out of nowhere. Before it was created, it was imagined.
Almost everything that exists in modern society exists because of someone’s imagination. Traffic lights. Juvenile Detention Courts. The next generation defining musical and the next generation defining policy agreement are all products of the human imagination. We cannot create what we cannot imagine and everything we imagine we have the power to create.
When people ask me why art is important, it is easy to talk about facts, like how societies with vibrant arts sectors are healthier overall. But the real reason why I think art is important is because I know how powerful our imaginations are and how crucial it is we use them for good.
That’s why I became a creative: Because I believe our imaginations are one of our powerful tools in creating a better world. And creatives are the people who have made it our jobs to use our imaginations. Every painting, every song, every story is a map to a possible reality. And the best creatives are not only creating those maps, but using them to guide our communities to a better, freer world.
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One of the first shows I ever worked on as a young creative was Alesha Harris’s play What to Send Up When It Goes Down. I had heard of the play before and was skeptical because was advertised as “more” than a play. The synopsis described it as part pageant, part ritual, part homegoing. A “community ritual”. And at the time, though I believed theater was a powerful tool for getting information out there and maybe changing some hearts and minds (both of which are very important!), I didn’t think theatre could really “do” anything.
But then I saw it.
What to Send Up was created to heal and fortify everyone (and especially black people) who have been devastated by the rampant killing of innocent black people by the police and private citizens “defending” themselves or their property. And for so many who got to witness this play, we can confidently say: It works!
We laughed. We cried. We screamed. We chanted. We walked out of our theaters stronger than we were before. In a world that imagines black bodies as threats, Alesha Harris dared to imagine black bodies as people, deserving of grief, deserving of empathy, and deserving of healing.
And then she brought that world to life.
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This is the kind of art the world desperately needs. Escapism is all fine and good, but what is necessary in this moment is art that calls us in, that challenges us to be better than we are. Truly remarkable art invites its audience into a different way of being and shows us how the world can be different.
And not in some far-off unimaginable future.
Right here.
Right now.
Because the people who imagined the society we currently live in are not the only ones with the power to create worlds. They came together to make their version of the world a reality.
We can do the same.
We can create a world that cares about people, about life, and about equality and justice. We can create a world where we and the generations to come not only live, but thrive. We can do it and we must do it, together. And we need creatives to lead the charge.
Because to build a better world?
We have to imagine it first.
