New Constellations

This encounter takes a new form, a slow conversation between Dan Hill - Director of Strategic Design at Vinnova, the Swedish government's innovation agency and author of the Slowdown Papers - and New Constellation’s Gemma Mortensen. Their exchange - from the urban landscape of Stockholm to the wilds of Dartmoor - explores how to create the hybrid conditions for human and non-human life to thrive and what design principles and approaches we’ll need to create the future we yearn for.

Made by Jo Barratt. Conceived by Jo Barratt and Gemma Mortensen, with Iris Andrews and Lily Piachaud.

Music is made for New Constellations by Art School Girlfriend.

Discover more at http://newconstellations.co/, and join us on Instagram and Twitter @newconstells

Gemma and Jo take a walk to reflect on the themes and patterns that have emerged from the first series of audio encounters and look ahead to the next series. The themes from this first series are explored in more detail in our blogs.

Made by Jo Barratt. Conceived by Jo Barratt and Gemma Mortensen, with Iris Andrews and Lily Piachaud.

Music is made for New Constellations by Art School Girlfriend.

Discover more at http://newconstellations.co/, and join us on Instagram and Twitter @newconstells

Candy Chang is an artist who creates public spaces through which people can connect with and share what it means to be human today. She explores how we can create more infrastructure for the soul - to reflect, to forgive, to atone and to see ourselves in each other. Having spent time bearing witness to the confessions of thousands of people around the world, she has seen just how much we want the same things for our future and how important it is to create new spaces for emotional communion.   

Made by Jo Barratt. Conceived by Jo Barratt and Gemma Mortensen, with Iris Andrews and Lily Piachaud.

Music made for New Constellations by Art School Girlfriend.

Discover more at http://newconstellations.co/, and join us on Instagram and Twitter @newconstells

Panthea’s work bridges perspectives, disciplines and divides. Without looking at the past and without healing from it, she believes we can never truly move forward.  So, as a strategist, organizer and facilitator, Panthea helps people explore what type of solidarity can heal, nourish and liberate us and keep us  alive to one another’s beauty and humanity as well as each other’s suffering. She asks how we can begin to dream again  and dream bigger from a place of curiosity and expansiveness and abundance and joy and delicious, juicy, open imagination.

Made by Jo Barratt. Conceived by Jo Barratt and Gemma Mortensen, with Iris Andrews and Lily Piachaud.

Music made for New Constellations by Art School Girlfriend.

Discover more at http://newconstellations.co/, and join us on Instagram and Twitter @newconstells

Sheffield’s journey was an adventure into the future for a group of Sheffielders from all walks of life and all parts of the city in autumn 2021. Together they examined this moment in Sheffield’s history and the past that brought us here, and dreamed of a brighter future for the city they love: one that fully reflects the potential of Sheffield’s incredible people and places. Listen to the crew’s story in their own words here.

Made by Jo Barratt with Gemma Mortensen, Iris Andrews and Lily Piachaud

Our crew of inspiring Sheffielders (who were involved in one or more of the three gatherings that formed this journey) included Abtisam Mohamed, Alexis Krachai, Anthony Olaseinde, Beatrix Butnicu, Dave Hembrough, Gulnaz Hussain, Helen Sims, James Lock, James O’Hara, Jodie Marshall, Kate Josephs, Kathryn Littlewood, Kiri Joanna, Louisa Harrison-Walker, Mahara Haque, Martin McKervey, Matthew Yates, Matthew Pinder, Maxine Greaves, Miranda Plowden, Nathan Geering, Novaya Bedward-Makanjuola, Rebecca Varley, Sandi Carman, Sarah Want, Steve Anwar, Terezia Terry and Waqas Hameed.

Discover more at newconstellations.co, and join us on Instagram and Twitter @newconstells

Yo-Yo Ma is an internationally renowned cellist and champion of culture’s power to transform lives. In moments of blissful musical flow, he experiences perfect equilibrium when his body becomes part of his mind. Fingers are like tiny brains, Yo-Yo says, they find their way into the sounds they want to hear. He calls for a second enlightenment in which we combine the power of the mind and body, the head and the heart to find and build a better future.

Made by Jo Barratt. Conceived by Jo Barratt and Gemma Mortensen, with Iris Andrews and Lily Piachaud.

Music is made for New Constellations by Art School Girlfriend. Additional music played by Yo-Yo Ma.

Discover more at http://newconstellations.co/, and join us on Instagram and Twitter @newconstells

Hilary is a gifted maker and a thinker, blessed with a formidable mind, deep heart and fierce passion. She thinks to make, and makes to think, and her craft is helping communities design their own solutions to the challenges they face. When Hilary works with people for the first time, she asks them to draw maps of their lives. Every map is a zig-zag. Our lives, she says, are ones of constant transition but all our systems see us climbing up long straight ladders. Hilary birthed the concept of ‘Radical Help’ to build a future in which people can live and work as a whole human being - loving, caring, playing, learning and working. 

Made by Jo Barratt. Conceived by Jo Barratt and Gemma Mortensen, with Iris Andrews and Lily Piachaud.

Discover more at http://newconstellations.co/, and join us on Instagram and Twitter @newconstells

Music is made for New Constellations by Art School Girlfriend.

Angel has a voice like medicine. It heals. He is a pioneer of the emerging field of healing-centred education - helping children and adults experience and channel the wisdom, pain and potential that resides in our bodies as well as our minds. In exploring his own heritage, he illuminates what is possible when we discover and act from a place of deep connectedness. We have to act from the future we dream of, he says, or we will find ourselves living in one dreamt up by others. 

Made by Jo Barratt. Conceived by Jo Barratt and Gemma Mortensen, with Iris Andrews and Lily Piachaud. 

Music is made for New Constellations by Art School Girlfriend.

Audio uses a soundscape recording of Playa Bonita in the Dominican Republic By Michael Tarrant by, licensed under a creative commons attribution licence.

Discover more at http://newconstellations.co/, and join us on Instagram and Twitter @newconstells

Audrey is a poetician and Taiwan’s first Digital Minister. She sees herself as a digital migrant, having moved into the internet when she was 12 years old. The early makers of digital democracy in the 21st century, she says, are like the makers of reflecting telescopes in the 17th century. They are building digital spaces that are transparent like glass and reflective like mirrors, helping us blend our individual feelings into shared reflections - the practice of democracy. 

Audio is licensed under Creative Commons CC0 licence. 

Made by Jo Barratt. Conceived by Jo Barratt and Gemma Mortensen, with Iris Andrews and Lily Piachaud.

Discover more at http://newconstellations.co/, and join us on Instagram and Twitter @newconstells

Music is made for New Constellations by Art School Girlfriend.

The Audio uses a recording made by sonnyestufa in Yuanlin City, Taiwan, a recording made by LG beach in Taitung, Taiwan and a recording of a Market in Taipei, Taiwan  made by xserra.  All are licensed under a creative commons attribution licence.

Anna sees and thinks in patterns. As a child, she carried around a notebook and recorded things that changed and how things were related to each other.  She explores what it is like to live guided by patterns - of the moon, of day and night, of the seasons. How to open ourselves up to the flow of the never-ending spirals we find in nature; in seeds, on the down-like hair of a baby’s head and in galactic formations. Having created PATTERNITY, she tries to live and work according to her own cycles, as a woman, a night-owl and someone who finds grounding and meaning in the annual cycles of the earth. 

Made by Jo Barratt. Conceived by Jo Barratt and Gemma Mortensen, with Iris Andrews and Lily Piachaud.

Music is made for New Constellations by Art School Girlfriend.

Discover more at http://newconstellations.co/, and join us on Instagram and Twitter @newconstells