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Short abstract

This paper explores narrative worldbuilding and Anticipatory Art Practice as creative anticipatory methods through which participants construct speculative cities and reflect on how ecological, social, and cultural dynamics shape possible urban futures.

Long abstract

Cities confronting climate change, infrastructural transformation, and social uncertainty increasingly rely on anticipatory methods to explore possible futures. Yet many foresight approaches remain largely analytical or technocratic, limiting their capacity to engage diverse actors in imagining and negotiating urban futures. This paper explores two complementary creative and speculative approaches: Narrative Worldbuilding and Anticipatory Art Practice, as participatory methods for constructing and interrogating possible urban futures.

The first approach builds on Doyle’s method of narrative worldbuilding, developed for over a decade at the Irish National Film School. Originating in film production practices for constructing coherent fictional environments, the method adapts cinematic worldbuilding techniques for participatory futures research. Participants investigate ecological systems, flora and fauna, urban infrastructures, cultural dynamics, and population patterns. These inquiries inform the collaborative construction of plausible speculative worlds through which future cities can be explored. Conceptually, this approach engages with Doyle’s Cone of Pluraversality, inviting reflection on how diverse and situated futures might unfold.

Complementing this approach, Anticipatory Art Practice, developed by Doherty, integrates futures literacy with socially engaged art. Within this framework, the Futures Métissage method creates dialogical spaces where diverse perspectives and imaginaries of living together in future urban contexts can emerge and interact.

The paper argues that creative anticipatory practices function as infrastructures of imagination. By combining narrative worldbuilding with participatory artistic methods, participants critically examine assumptions about urban futures and collaboratively articulate more plural and regenerative pathways for urban resilience and sustainability.