The Citadins, Citadines 2050 project is an experiment in "creative foresight" which took place in 2024, in three urban areas (Marseilles, Paris and the Seine-Saint-Denis department), based on the following intention:
Mobilize art and fiction to explore how urban territories might adapt in the face of climate change, involving populations whose voice is usually not heard on these subjects: socially disadvantaged and/or vulnerable residents ("Citizens"), local authority field agents ("Agents").
WHAT THEY IMAGINED
From April to May 2024, five cycles of workshops were organized with groups of 10 to 30 participants: citizens in Noisy-le-Sec (93) and Paris, agents in Paris and across the Seine-Saint-Denis department, citizens and agents together in the Noailles-Belsunce districts of Marseilles. With the help of eight artists, the participants produced striking descriptions of life in their territories in 2050.
The "Citizens" group in Paris was composed only of teenagers and young adults, gathered (through the nonprofit Laboratoire d'Expression Créative, Labec) around a common passion and practice: theatre. Using this means of expression, alternating improvisations, writing, and enactments, they created three plays about Paris in 2050.
The three plays (written by Apolline Delagarde, Neva Bonachera and Maëlle Grech) have several features in common. The territory they refer to is Greater Paris, divided into "Zones" that reflect social and political power relations. The time period (2050) follows a catastrophe about which little is known—unless it has simply been forgotten. The environment is severely degraded, sometimes uninhabitable, except for the inhabitants of "Zone 1," the "Bubble" surrounding Paris' historical center — but at what cost, even for them? These three stories paint a rather bleak future, from which there is no escape except through revolt or, very exceptionally, individual or community resourcefulness.
| Theme | Description |
|---|---|
| Environment | An environment that has been severely degraded by both extreme pollution and the effects of climate change. People live with it and seem to have given up on the idea of combating its causes. |
| Society | Social inequalities have become entrenched. They are reflected in the geographical distribution of the population (the "Zones," see below), the use of surveillance and even force to contain the aspirations of the poorest, and the difficulty many people have in meeting their basic needs: water, education, health, etc. |
| Food | There is little mention of it, but it appears that animal husbandry is virtually non-existent; that access to healthy plant-based products is a luxury, even if a few suburban neighborhoods organize pockets of urban agriculture; and that people, especially when poor, tend to eat synthetic foods. |
| Technology | Modern technologies (digital, nuclear power plants in orbit, artificial insemination, etc.) coexist with older ones (radio, food crops in outer areas). Digital technology is—as it is today—the backbone of a consumer society (intrusive advertising) and a means of monitoring the "dangerous classes." Certain technologies are used for extreme forms of exploitation: electricity generated by prisoners' muscle power, cheese made from women's milk ("femmage"), and tiles made from human bone dust. |
| Governance | An (generally nameless) authoritarian power emanates from the Central Zone. It relies on surveillance, control of the borders between zones, control of information (and emotions) and, sometimes, force. |
| Territory | Greater Paris is divided into socially stratified "zones": at the center, "Zone 1," where life is peaceful and relatively comfortable under the protection of a bubble; on the outskirts, increasingly deprived neighborhoods where people survive and, often, are bored. |
| Economy and work | Between unbridled capitalism and a form of neo-feudalism. In the outlying neighborhoods, people live off precarious jobs, generally serving the needs of Zone 1. Other forms of non-monetary work are emerging, bordering on mutual aid, the commons, and activism: community radio, urban agriculture, popular schools, etc. |
| The central tension | Live as best you can, or fight? Accept the system, or destabilize it even without knowing what will follow? |
NEVA
I think I'd like to be a flower.
MIKE
Why?
NEVA
I'm not sure. When you're a flower, you don't have to pay for water. Or rations. You get watered, you get fed. You get as much as you need. I could grow somewhere else, and they'd take me into the Bubble. Everyone would take care of me, no one would trample on me. People would watch where they walked because I'd be important. At least, that's how it seems: That flowers are worth more than me.
HOW IT WAS DONE
The process alternated three phases:
- During the first half day, U+ is in charge and helps the participants elicit how they relate to the future (using the Polak Game), then share their experience and knowledge of the effects (not the causes) of Climate Change. Then, they begin to imagine how the experience of living in their city 25 years from now would be.
- During the second phase, which takes no less than a day (and almost a week in the case of the Paris group), the artists are in the lead. The goal is to create an engaging, powerful creation based on what happened during phase 1. In the case of Paris, it concluded with a first public enactment of the three plays.
- The last phase lasts for two to three hours, during which participants are invited to look upon their own creation: What do they say about the future? What could we have added to it? What messages do these stories from 2050 seem to send to us (and others, eg, policymakers) in the present? And also: What have we learned, personally and collectively? What do we take away from the process?
Four clear lessons emerged from this process:
1. A more inclusive participation is possible
The Citadins, Citadines 2050 project sought to involve, in work on the future and climate change, participants that are very rarely encountered in such initiatives: people in precarious or fragile social situations, and field workers employed by local authorities. The result is unambiguous: these two audiences have an essential contribution to make, and it doesn't take much to get them talking about climate change and/or the future. On the other hand, they do not always feel concerned, or welcomed, by participatory approaches that are supposed to be open to all. Inclusivity requires work, and special attention to audiences who are not used to having their voices taken into account.
2. Build on shared awareness of upcoming changes
All participants were acutely aware of the ongoing ecological upheavals and have a fairly detailed understanding of their causes and consequences. They understand that these upheavals will lead to very profound changes in their territories, their lifestyles, their activities, etc. It does not seem necessary to convince them of this, but rather to engage in a dialogue now on how to anticipate these transformations, prepare for them, adapt to them, and turn them into an opportunity as much as a constraint.
3. Link ecological and social issues
The stories produced by the participants express a shared feeling that ecological degradation could accentuate, even radicalize, social inequalities, thus constituting a perfect dystopian scenario. On the other hand, addressing both issues head-on allows more positive adaptation scenarios to emerge, notably through concrete and horizontal solidarity.
4. Resilience is a social matter, rather than a technical one
There are certainly technical measures that can be put in place to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, but, as the participants' creations tell us, the real key to resilience lies in social connection: the ability to act together, to help each other, to trust each other, to live powerful experiences together despite the harsh times -- and to compensate the probable (according to our participants) inadequacy of technical and institutional systems. Any territorial adaptation/resilience strategy should undoubtedly make strengthening social ties, at micro-local scales, one of its very first priorities.