At the recent Forum de la Culture Durable in Brussels, we invited participants to step into an ephemeral time-travel machine. Guided by our ongoing research, we didn’t just discuss possible futures—we felt them, questioned them, and began to shape them, together.
Our research points to three recurring narratives about the future of culture:
🤖 one shaped by AI
🌍 one focused on building climate-proof cultural events
🤝 one where social bonds may become our most endangered resource
In this immersive session, participants explored these three paths and helped us map a fourth one, emerging from what they already carried with them.
🌱 What surfaced were very concrete worries:
– Fears that AI might replace what makes us human — creativity, sensitivity, craftsmanship.
– Concerns about losing skills by delegating too much.
– Anxiety about impoverishment, shrinking funding, and cultural work becoming more competitive yet less meaningful.
– And a recurring fear of being less together — fewer physical encounters, fewer shared moments, fewer human connections.
🌱 Alongside these worries, strong hopes were voiced:
– That AI cannot replace empathy, love, or the ability to really encounter others.
– That solidarity and mutual support can still be preserved.
– That people — artists, technicians, cooks, teams, audiences — will remain the core ingredient of cultural life.
– That rituals like live music, dancing together, celebration, saying hello, and simply being present can endure.
When asked what they would save if culture had to fit into a single van, many answered simply: the people.
In this express and immersive format, research insights became an embodied experience. Despite the late hour, participants stayed attentive and curious — and several lingered afterwards to share reflections about how rarely they get space to speak about emotions, values, and relationships in professional cultural settings.
What struck us most was how consistently one theme returned, across the different futures:
the need to stay connected — to one another, to shared rituals, and to what makes culture alive.
Our research keeps pointing to this: it’s not only resources that make the difference. Collective imagination — especially when it is shared — may be one of the most powerful cultural technologies we have.
Moments like this remind us that culture is not fixed. It is dynamic. It is alive, and shaped by what we choose to nurture. And perhaps the future of culture is not a single vision, but something that emerges between anxiety and action, when we choose connection over isolation.
A big thank you to the EventChange team, Nicolas Fieulaine and NFÉtudes for the invitation and the opportunity ✨
💬 What kind of future do you believe culture can help us build?
