studio b:ask
How can performance, design, and speculative imagination help us tell different stories about who we are and who we might become?

This cross-disciplinary panel gathers directors, performers, and designers to explore the role of storytelling as a cultural tool for imagining otherwise. Panelists will share insights from theater-making, performance design, and narrative experimentation — opening up a conversation about how creative practices can shift cultural imagination and invite new possibilities for belonging.

Through dialogue and exchange, you’ll hear about the challenges of working across mediums, the opportunities of breaking traditional forms, and the responsibility of artists to surface stories that expand collective horizons.

For audiences, Imagining Otherwise offers not only inspiration but also entry points: what does it mean to see performance as a prototype for futures? How can design practices shape the stories we tell together? And what happens when performance and speculative imagination converge?

The evening will feature a lively panel conversation, time for audience Q&A, and opportunities to connect with others interested in how art and design shape our civic and cultural futures.

💫Related Events

The panel is part of "Imagining Otherwise: Storytelling & Narrative Future(s)," a three-day exploration of performance as a design method for cultural futures (Oct 18–20), combining table reads, workshops, and dialogues that use performance and design to spark futures thinking. Learn more at bit.ly/asf2025