Does your future scare you?

How do you feel about your future? Does it scare you? Does it excite you? These are questions raised by young people who recently took part in Feeling Futures, a participatory research project in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), to discover how young people feel about their futures and life transitions, whether that be education, career, environment, ambitions or emotions.

Feeling Futures developed from a four-week programme in 2023 called Feeling Places, that creatively explored and documented how higher education spaces made young people feel and how they could be improved to be more inclusive. We wanted to explore this further.

In our latest project, the conversations became more broadly about the young people’s futures, with questions about their hopes, worries and whether higher education was the right decision for them.

Over six weeks, a series of artist-led participatory workshops brought together students from secondary schools in Tower Hamlets and the university, including undergraduates and postgraduates, to explore their theme.

Through drama and creative activities around the subject of Transitions, the group developed an event for friends, families and colleagues that shared experiences of life changes involving multiple generations, that would foster mutual support.

A final event shared people’s responses, using verbatim performance and other creative techniques, including scene work exploring what the future might look like, spoken-word poetry, movement and filmed interview material.

By creatively sharing everyone’s experiences of entering different phases of life, this work extended and developed support for the transitions that young people and young adults face as they pass through different stages and contexts of education, training and work.

Before starting the sessions the team had no idea what the young people would come up with and how they perceived the idea of “future”, so it was incredibly interesting to find out their thoughts. This ranged from wanting to play for Chelsea Football Club, wondering if there would be peace in the world, hoping to be prime minister, wanting more freedom, and thinking more about the future than the past.

We quickly realised this type of questioning is relevant for all ages and that it got the audience thinking. So, how do you feel about your future?

Half Moon has many activities for young people to get involved with. Look around our website or email youth@halfmoon.org.uk to find out more.

Lydia Hallam is the Creative Learning Administrator at Half Moon