Imagine a world where many worlds fit in - From the Zapatista Movement

In 2019, Alex Bennett and a group of friends founded Vence in a small New York apartment, driven by a shared passion for visual storytelling.

Artwork: Mohamed Chebaa, Géométrie Palestinienne

Welcome to “Towards Life – tools for ecological imaginations”, a collection of recipes or a book of spells if you like, to guard and expand our imaginations. 

Working against the domination of extractive mythologies, settler and postcolonial realities, and neoliberal hangovers, “Towards Life” unearths tools that protect our capacity to imagine and to radically imagine otherwise – away from the sense of hopelessness, exhaustion and burnout affecting many of us working at the front line of social and environmental justice.

But why focus on imagination right now, you might ask? As many would argue, the multiple crises and emergencies we are experiencing today are first of all the result of a profound crisis of the imagination: an imagination of the future that also calls for a deep connection to the past and its wisdoms, as well as the celebration of the many manifestations of life that populate our present.

Welcome to “Towards Life – tools for ecological imaginations”, a collection of recipes or a book of spells if you like, to guard and expand our imaginations. 

Working against the domination of extractive mythologies, settler and postcolonial realities, and neoliberal hangovers, “Towards Life” unearths tools that protect our capacity to imagine and to radically imagine otherwise – away from the sense of hopelessness, exhaustion and burnout affecting many of us working at the front line of social and environmental justice.

But why focus on imagination right now, you might ask? As many would argue, the multiple crises and emergencies we are experiencing today are first of all the result of a profound crisis of the imagination: an imagination of the future that also calls for a deep connection to the past and its wisdoms, as well as the celebration of the many manifestations of life that populate our present.


Rejecting the linear trajectories traced and imposed on all of us by those arguing that “There is No Alternative” (to unlimited ‘growth’, to modernisation and capitalism, to war, profit, aggression, concrete, ugliness, separations, Us-Them rethorics, anger, fear, atrophy, etc), Towards Life invokes and holds space for re-enchantment, kindness, entanglement, and joy.


Rejecting the linear trajectories traced and imposed on all of us by those arguing that “There is No Alternative” (to unlimited ‘growth’, to modernisation and capitalism, to war, profit, aggression, concrete, ugliness, separations, Us-Them rethorics, anger, fear, atrophy, etc), Towards Life invokes and holds space for re-enchantment, kindness, entanglement, and joy.




How can we guard our imaginations from colonial pessimism and hopelessness?

 How can we use works of the imagination together to think of and create other worlds that elude current settler and postcolonial realities?

How can activating the imagination in certain ways help alleviate the violence we are bearing witness in many parts of the world?

- Sanabel Abdel Rahman

How can we guard our imaginations from colonial pessimism and hopelessness?

 How can we use works of the imagination together to think of and create other worlds that elude current settler and postcolonial realities?

How can activating the imagination in certain ways help alleviate the violence we are bearing witness in many parts of the world?

- Sanabel Abdel Rahman

Think of this website, then, as a portal bringing you to a world of practices, creatures, and stories that center magical realism, deep and spiritual ecology, socially engaged art and radical politics in a struggle to remake our world as one where many worlds can exist. To learn and rehearse collectively for the “Not Yet”2, for new shared imaginaries of how we want to live together.


Hence, individually and in dialogue, the tools gathered here ground us back to our interconnected belonging to the Earth and to the mutual relationships of reciprocity and care spurring from it.

In doing so, they operate as ‘imaginal tools’ helping us liberate and decolonize our (collective) imagination and prefigurate ecologies and ecosystems rooted in the circularity of time, the justice of deep listening, the curiosity of the humble learner, the ingeniosity of those that for so long stewarded our (once shared) lands.


Who is this for?



If you made it this far, chances are that you work on, or are passionate about landscape conservation, deep and spiritual ecologies, community engagement, environmental and social justice, critical thinking or socially engaged and participatory art practices.

Whether this is the case or not, the conversations, experiences, stories, exercises and practices that compose this assemblage are open-ended tools for you to take and explore. Some are meant to be activated more ‘directly’ in your organising, community, or work as they offer adaptable blueprints or guided activities to test, adapt and apply. Others may be stories sparking new ideas, or reflections pushing you to challenge and rethink the way in which you navigate, see or operate in the world.



This collection is far from being complete. Rather, we see it and the platform hosting it as a digital garden, an ever growing, adapting and nourishing space, yielding new fruits at every harvest.


As you pick a fruit or herb from it, think of saving its seeds and sharing some back with us!

In this respect, if you have tools from your own practice that you would like to share on this platform or if you would just like to share how the ones you found here worked for you, please do share feedback with us by writing at info@global-diversity.org
1. For more reflections around the circularity of time and time as a matter building our realities, tune into Carla Tapparo’s contribution here.

2. Learn more about the Not Yet as described and practiced by artist Jeanne van Heeswijk here.
Artwork: Mohammed Melehi, Volcanique
Artwork: Mohammed Melehi, Volcanique

Who is this for?



If you made it this far, chances are that you work on, or are passionate about landscape conservation, deep and spiritual ecologies, community engagement, environmental and social justice, critical thinking or socially engaged and participatory art practices.

Whether this is the case or not, the conversations, experiences, stories, exercises and practices that compose this assemblage are open-ended tools for you to take and explore. Some are meant to be activated more ‘directly’ in your organising, community, or work as they offer adaptable blueprints or guided activities to test, adapt and apply. Others may be stories sparking new ideas, or reflections pushing you to challenge and rethink the way in which you navigate, see or operate in the world.

This collection is far from being complete. Rather, we see it and the platform hosting it as a digital garden, an ever growing, adapting and nourishing space, yielding new fruits at every harvest.


As you pick a fruit or herb from it, think of saving its seeds and sharing some back with us!

In this respect, if you have tools from your own practice that you would like to share on this platform or if you would just like to share how the ones you found here worked for you, please do share feedback with us by writing at info@global-diversity.org
Artwork: Mohamed Melehi_Flames_Poster designed for Special issue “For a Palestinian Revolution” (1967) of the Moroccan magazine Souffles/Anfas

How to navigate this website



At the heart of this website are a series of contributions, each hosted on a dedicated web-page. In order to access them, two paths are available for you.


  1. You can encounter them as you navigate through the beautiful landscape created by artist Deepika Nandan for our landing webpage. Each entity is a clickable icon leading you to one of our ‘tools’.


  2. You can get an overview of all the tools gathered in this web-space by opening our ‘Glossary’ page, which also functions as an index. Next to the contributions explicitly made for this project, the glossary also contains a few external links and references from artists, organisers, thinkers that have actively worked with the notion of imagination in their environmental, social or political practice.

How to navigate this website



At the heart of this website are a series of contributions, each hosted on a dedicated web-page. In order to access them, two paths are available for you.


  1. You can encounter them as you navigate through the beautiful landscape created by artist Deepika Nandan for our landing webpage. Each entity is a clickable icon leading you to one of our ‘tools’.


  2. You can get an overview of all the tools gathered in this web-space by opening our ‘Glossary’ page, which also functions as an index. Next to the contributions explicitly made for this project, the glossary also contains a few external links and references from artists, organisers, thinkers that have actively worked with the notion of imagination in their environmental, social or political practice.

Where does "Towards Life" come from?



As many of the practices gathered here, also this ‘toolkit’ came about through collaboration and in community.

Initiated by the Global Diversity Foundation (GDF), the toolkit intersects, on the one hand, the research and practice of scholar, writer and researcher Sanabel Abdel Rahman around the role that magical realism plays in the struggle of Palestinian liberation and the threads of solidarity it draws with other indigenous communities around the world. Moving from this, as well as the shared experience of organising and holding the workshop “Relanding: Writing Eco-connections within Speculative Frames", the toolkit became an opportunity for Sanabel to ‘unearth tools to liberate the imagination’ in conversation with invited artists and organisers Carla Tapparo, Jeanne Van Heeswijk, Samara Sallam, and Eazuka Khazrik.


On the other hand, the making of this toolkit, or ‘recipe book’, also intersected “Reimagining Planetary Regeneration: A South and South-East Asia Community Exchange”, codeveloped by GDF with Protecterra Ecological Foundation (PEF). A number of contributions in this collection results, indeed, from invitations and offerings from some of the participants and facilitators of this programme.

Where does "Towards Life" come from?



As many of the practices gathered here, also this ‘toolkit’ came about through collaboration and in community.

Initiated by the Global Diversity Foundation (GDF), the toolkit intersects, on the one hand, the research and practice of scholar, writer and researcher Sanabel Abdel Rahman around the role that magical realism plays in the struggle of Palestinian liberation and the threads of solidarity it draws with other indigenous communities around the world. Moving from this, as well as the shared experience of organising and holding the workshop “Relanding: Writing Eco-connections within Speculative Frames", the toolkit became an opportunity for Sanabel to ‘unearth tools to liberate the imagination’ in conversation with invited artists and organisers Carla Tapparo, Jeanne Van Heeswijk, Samara Sallam, and Eazuka Khazrik.


On the other hand, the making of this toolkit, or ‘recipe book’, also intersected “Reimagining Planetary Regeneration: A South and South-East Asia Community Exchange”, codeveloped by GDF with Protecterra Ecological Foundation (PEF). A number of contributions in this collection results, indeed, from invitations and offerings from some of the participants and facilitators of this programme.
This project was conceived and curated by Sanabel Abdel Rahman, Francesca Masoero, Alysha Nelson, with the support of Nessie Reid.


Contributors: Alysha Nelson, Ashish Kothari, Carla Tapparo, Francesca Masoero, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Nauras Indori (with artistic direction & sound design by Fayçal Lahrouchi & the voices of Anushka Kale, Adi Gangga, A. George Bajalia, Frederica Mergulhao, Alysha Nelson, Francesca Masoero & Pooja R. Bhale), Phuong Nam, Pooja R. Bhale, Samara Sallam, Trang Bui, Vanessa Reid.

Web platform creation and design by Alysha Nelson and Meghna Saji.
Main illustrations by Deepika Nandan.
Media outlets design support by Faycal Lahrouchi.


Copyright: Published in May 2026 by Global Diversity Foundation. This work is licensed under
a Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial - No Derivatives 4.0 International License.

Part of Global Diversity Foundation

Back to Top
Instagram
Linkedin

Part of Global Diversity Foundation

Back to Top
Instagram
Linkedin

Create a free website with Framer, the website builder loved by startups, designers and agencies.