Introduction to Future Feelings with Radha Mistry
“If we have the ability to create stories around what we might want to happen, around these preferable visions of futures, do we then have some sense of agency and maybe ownership over what the future becomes?”
The study, the science, and the art of predicting and preparing for the future has long been a preoccupation of humankind, and is of particular concern to designers. The stakes of our global present are especially high. We’re facing the compounding repercussions of climate change and rapidly transforming technologies alongside the catastrophic fallouts of a deeply flawed, centuries-old geopolitical system. It’s difficult even to parse the present, let alone conceive both of what might come next, and how we might exercise agency in shaping it.
In this series, Radha Mistry, a designer with a background that spans architecture, narrative environments, and strategic foresight, unpacks the purpose and practice of futuring, and introduces us to six venerable practitioners who approach this work in myriad ways.
This introductory episode provides our audience the opportunity get to know the series host—Radha Mistry—as she speaks to Deem co-founder and creative director Nu Goteh about the discipline of future studies, the personal and professional circumstances that have shaped her career trajectory, and what it means to practice, think with, and cultivate foresight in the context of design.
Radha Mistry is the Americas Region Foresight Leader at Arup, teaches futures studies in the Master of Architecture programs at Southern California Institute of Architecture, and spends most of her time exploring the impact of emerging drivers and how they’ll change the way we design and make things in the future. She is based in Los Angeles.
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Future Feelings is brought to you by Deem Audio. Production by Amy Mae Garrett. Editorial by Isabel Flower. Creative direction by Nu Goteh. Cover art by Jun Lin. Sound mixing and editing by Hasan Insane. Theme music by Nu Goteh. A special thank you to our host, Radha Mistry.