Groups of role-players are traipsing through Dandenong streets this month, with a bold hope of reimagining the city’s 2050 future.
Dr Troy Innocent, from RMIT University’s Future Lab, is leading the public in a ‘Reworlding Dandenong’ game that tours landmarks Walker Street Gallery, Dandenong Market, Heritage Hill, Drum Theatre and Harmony Square.
The city-scape is used as a “material” in this “creative play with possibilities”. It’s not a “competitive” game but a collaborative experience.
“We’re bringing those five social sites into the game to ask what could those places be, how might people gather and connect.
“It’s a way of being in the world, and to break out of our preconceptions and patterns we’re stuck in for the three-hour experience.”
The game also aims to break preconceptions as it ponders our immediate challenges – the climate emergency, social cohesion and AI.
“There’s no magic solution, there’s no easy way ahead.
“We do it together – we can’t wait for someone to deliver us a solution, but also we can’t give up and lie in collective despair.
“Through projects like this, we have hope. We hope to create resilience and possibility and hope itself.”
The lab’s reworlding project has previously been staged across the country, in sites such as Brisbane and Carlton.
The tour ends with a workshop for participants to collectively imagine the future.
Reworlding Dandenong is part of the Greater Dandenong’s HOME 25 – Invisible Cities exhibition and arts festival.
It is on Saturdays 16, 23 and 30 August, 10am-1pm. Free event, bookings essential at greaterdandenong.vic.gov.au/greater-dandenong-council/events/reworlding-dandenong-troy-innocent
