How do we create the future? What enables us to envision, then build, a world that does not yet exist – and that we've only seen glimpses of, at best?
Tools, Testimonies & Tomorrows is a conversation series organized by One Square World that helps liberatory world-builders recognize, embrace, and celebrate the resources we already have that support our visionary and transformative work. All of our lineages contain a rich legacy of practices and stories that show us the kind of worlds that are possible beyond the structures we currently live in. And if we're going to create, we have to lean into our creativity: our ability to dream, play, experiment, share, fail, learn, and regenerate as we seek to understand and give life to places and systems that speak to our deepest human needs, questions, and aspirations.
Join us and our sponsoring partner Alternatives for Community & Environment during Climate Week NYC 2026 for the in-person launch of the series! On Tuesday, September 22 from 12pm to 5pm at Malt House Harlem, we'll bring together climate and housing advocates, circular fashion designers, and other artists and culture bearers to share lessons from developing community-controlled solutions to the social, economic, and environmental challenges facing our people and our places. Woven throughout the conversations will be opportunities for participants to creatively reflect and engage around the ideas and questions raised by our presenters. The afternoon will end with time for connection and play with those you've seen, heard from, and talked with during the event.
Tools – How can we use the resources, practices, and systems available to us today to move toward a liberatory future? How do we redirect the useful materials and energy of the system we are in toward the things that we will need to build? How do we know what’s recyclable/compostable and what we need to not carry forward?
Testimonies – How do we raise up the stories that this world wants to obscure about our cultures, lineages, struggles and triumphs? How do we learn from and carry forward the lessons of those stories? How do we weave our past/current stories into future stories?
Tomorrows – what are people building that models breaking out of existing systems and creating new ones fully rooted in our values? Why are they building what they are building? What aspect(s) of liberation are they reaching for?
