How Storytelling Can Help Us Imagine Biophilic Futures
25th August 2026
How do we imagine healthier, more resilient and more nature-connected futures? For Project REPAIR, one answer lies in storytelling.
The Reflection (Futuring) Thread explores how creative and speculative methods can help people think differently about the places where they live. Rather than attempting to predict the future, these approaches encourage participants to imagine alternative possibilities, question assumptions, and consider how today's decisions might shape tomorrow's communities.
One example of this approach is the ‘Rising Issues’ project, a public engagement initiative exploring environmental change through storytelling, comics and speculative methods. Through creative workshops, the project brings together researchers, artists, and communities to explore how imagination can help us respond to the environmental challenges of the future.
Reflecting on the value of speculative storytelling, Chris explains:
“Speculative storytelling can help people grapple with how we imagine our shared futures, and it provides a ‘language’ that we can use to articulate those desires and fears and to deliberate about how best to move toward those futures that are equitable, sustainable and appealing.”
As part of the project, Project REPAIR researcher Dr Chris Pak took part in a series of workshops held at Oriel Science, where participants explored creative approaches to imagining environmental futures. The workshops also provided an opportunity to exchange ideas with researchers and creative practitioners working in related fields, highlighting strong connections between the methods being explored through the Rising Issues project and those being developed within Project REPAIR.
During the workshops, Chris wrote two short speculative pieces inspired by the discussions and activities. The organisers encouraged contributors to retain authorship of their work and share it more widely, enabling Project REPAIR to feature these creative works as part of its wider exploration of storytelling as a research method.
Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing Chris's two speculative pieces on the Stories from REPAIR page. Together, they explore themes of place, memory, and environmental change, inviting readers to imagine how the choices we make today may shape the places we inhabit tomorrow.
To find out more about the Rising Issues project, visit https://climatecocentre.org/engagement/rising-issues/