AS the ACT government’s new 10-day innovations festival, “Uncharted Territory”, swings into action (July 7-16), 11 artists, researchers, thinkers and “provocateurs” are preparing to dream up new futures with audience members and then present them back as “dispatches from the future”.

All will become clear in “Assembly for the Future”, billed as a participatory gathering, where the  collaborators, participants and audiences are being transported to 2029 to  create new visions for futures that could be realistic, idealistic or utterly fanciful. Their “futures” will later be published online in a series of artworks.

It’s the sixth “Assembly for the Future” presented by The Things We Did Next, curated by Alex Kelly and David Pledger arts company Not Yet Its Difficult, but it’s the first one in Canberra.

First speaker Bhiamie Williamson, a Euahlayi man with family ties to north-west Queensland, will trace how we have faced the threats of climate change through indigenous land justice and setting caring-for-country within the national psyche, after which local artist and researcher, Erica Seccombe and creative technologist, Keir Winesmith, will respond.

Then after a short interval, the audience members will break into small groups to play their part in the speculations, mustered by an all-local ensemble of artist-moderators as follows: roboticist Damith Herath, musician and environmentalist Tim Hollo; dancer and performance maker Alison Plevey; multi-disciplinary artist Anna Raupach; activist and researcher Felicity Ruby; artist-curator Nina Sellars; writer and tsunami scientist Kaya Wilson; and Barkindji artist, poet and “CityNews” art reviewer, Barrina South.

“Assembly for the Future,” Kambri ANU, 3pm-5pm, Tuesday, July 11, as part of “Uncharted Territory”, ANU Kambri and around Canberra.