The poet Lemn Sissay once described his wonderment at the thought that everything around us was imagined first. Everything physical – the camera he was looking at, the microphone he was talking into – started as an act of imagination. He wrote a poem:

I will not limit myself
I will not be afraid
If it were not imagined
How else could it be made?

This Simple Act is an invitation to take a step back from the current moment, and imagine the world you want to see. What would your school, community, city, or the planet look like, if you made the rules?

You can take this Simple Act wherever your imagination wants to go, and start as small or as big as you like. Here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Draw, paint, craft or write a poem or story about the world you want to see
  • Write a poem or short story starting with ‘Imagine if…’ or ‘Imagine a world where…’
  • Imagine you had to leave your home behind. What would you take with you? What would you hope to find?

Stick your imagining in your window, send it to a friend, or share it on social media using the hashtag #SimpleActs #Imagine.

Inspiration

Refugee Week 2020 ‘Imagine’ anthology

Refugee Week 2020 ‘Imagine’ video

The Pandemic is a Portal, Arundhati Roy in the Financial Times

Flights of fancy: 10 ways to imagine our way out of the climate crisis – inspiration from Rob Hopkins’ book ‘What Is to What If’, in the Guardian

‘Between These Folded Walls, Utopia’ – portraits by Cooper & Gorfer imagining  an future built by young migrant women