Imagining, Designing and Teaching Regenerative Futures: Art-Science Approaches and Inspirations From Around the World

This open access book explores the potential of transdisciplinary, art-science approaches in addressing current social-ecological complexities within educational contexts. Moving beyond disciplinary perspectives this book integrates holistic, transdisciplinary approaches and creates spaces for imagining and co-creating just, liveable, healthy futures. As we face the urgent need for new ways of learning and engaging with nature, this volume emphasizes the importance of humans as integral parts of living systems. By fostering a regenerative and holistic perspective while improving wellbeing for humans and non-humans, the book offers tools and methods that invite learners to reimagine their relationships with nature and with the future.

It includes innovative approaches for community engagement, design, future visioning, experiential, embodied, and playful learning, providing a comprehensive resource for educators, community workers, policy makers, designers, scientists, architects, and urban planners. The book brings together creative, art-science approaches to advance transformative education in the field of sustainability science. Structured as a practical manual, it offers innovative methodologies with clear instructions for application in various learning environments.

Offering tutorials for 65 creative methods developed by the 120 authors from all around the world, this book offers a transdisciplinary and transcontextual approach making it relevant to a wide audience. This collaborative project is an output of the Cost Action CA21166 - Social Sciences and Humanities for Transformation and Climate Resilience (SHiFT) that brings together researchers and practitioners from different disciplines to address sustainability transformation.

A virtual exhibition of the book is available below, where each room represents one section and each “artwork” on the wall corresponds to a chapter. Clicking on an artwork directs visitors to the DOI of the respective chapter. 
https://www.artsteps.com/embed/68f26a5225ccd039686bd1d4/1280/720

Dr. Julia Bentz is a regeneration and transformation researcher at ce3c Center for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Change, University of Lisbon, Portugal. She has a background in interdisciplinary social sciences (MPhil. Development Studies, PhD Economics) and conducts research on the many interactions between social and ecological systems in a variety of research fields and contexts, including futures, climate change mitigation, adaptation, and transformation. Her special interests are transdisciplinary community engagement and learning with a focus on the transformative potential of art and story. In her work, she applies an integrative approach to sustainability transformations and regeneration, one that reconnects body and mind, that fuses art and science, and that integrates diverse forms of knowledge in an open, collaborative and creative way.

Dr. Jelena Ristić Trajković is an Associate Professor and Vice Dean for Research and Innovation at the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Architecture. She also teaches at the University of Arts in Belgrade - Faculty of Applied Arts. With a PhD in Architecture and Urbanism, her primary research interests include design methodologies related to social transformation, sustainability and resilience, the relationship between space and health, and the application of environment-behavior theories in design. Her approach aims to bridge theoretical frameworks with practical applications, emphasizing critical reflection and design's role in fostering reconnection with nature, regenerative environments, and communities. In the professional-artistic field, she acts through competitions, projects, policy briefs, and various initiatives aimed at contributing to the academic and broader community.