At 6.30pm on Monday 15th September 2008, as a full moon rose over Covent Garden, John Grant, Aladin and other members of the 11 strong London United collective took to the greengaged limelight for their first ever workshop, “Imagine 2058″ - a journey through time. London United’s Aladin took centre stage to a circle of thirty five attendees and, in a soft tone, instructed “Relax and close your eyes… each time you exhale, you are going to move forward another year… 2010, 2011, 2012…”
After the group awoke from their trip to 2058, they independently took a few moments to write down what they had seen. A large blank map of London was then rolled out and the participants took to the floor to collectively paint their visions of London 2058. The workshop was wonderfully magical and the developed visions of 2058 ranged from an underwater city, a combined bicycle and riverboat transport system, and a no car day. At the close of the evening, Mark Beever, Design Director at thomas.matthews explained “On my journey, I realised I’d be 88 years old and I didn’t have any power. So, returning to 2008 I recognised the need to make the changes now.”
You can see more photos of the Imagine 2058 workshop over on Flickr.
London United are: Aladin, Jamie Burdett, John Grant, Tyler Moorhead, Luke Nicholson, Jules Peck, Cyndi Rhoades, Juhi Shareef, Lea Simpson, Sophie Thomas and Ben Todd.
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