100 Ways to Be a Good Ancestor: an exhibition of the often small and everyday ways we can try to be good ancestors by imagining together a different world. Explore 100 contributions from the observations, actions and learning of over 100 people in Dudley involved in Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice in 2024.
We all want to be a good ancestor - we want to help create a better world for our children, their children and their grandchildren. The hard bit is that this requires long-term thinking.
“Becoming a good ancestor is a formidable task. Our chances of doing so will be determined by the outcome of a struggle for the human mind currently taking place on a global scale between the opposing forces of short-term and long-term thinking.
At this moment in history the dominant force is clear: we live in an age of pathological short-termisim. Politicians can barely see beyond the next election or the latest opinion poll or tweet. Businesses are slaves to the next quarterly report and the constant demand to ratchet up shareholder value… Our culture of instant gratification makes us overdose on fast food, rapid-fire texting and the ‘Buy Now’ button.”
Actions which contribute to Dudley Creates start from a place of long-term thinking because real transformational change takes time and requires that intention and patience. It’s why Dudley Creates is a 100 year cultural strategy in action. 100 years is a long time, but we know that justice movements hold a North Star across multiple generations, no matter how choppy and changing the weather. It is possible to grow longer-term ways of thinking and all the possibilities for flourishing futures that doing so reveals. It is possible to become a good ancestor.
Dudley’s Time Rebels and over 100 people involved in Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice actions during 2024 have been observing, doing, learning and reflecting. They have been paying close attention to many different ways of being in the world, relating to each other, and creating change together. Together they are contributing 100 artefacts to a celebratory exhibition of what they have learnt and done this year. The artefacts represent 100 Ways to Be A Good Ancestor.
This exhibition honours some of the often small everyday ways we can try to be good ancestors by imagining a different world together, and practicing different ways of being and creating in response to that dream.
Come along to the Dudley Creates Winter Gathering to explore the exhibition and be inspired by the incredible creative expressions shared by local people as they dreamed, foraged, cooked, chatted, sang, listened, drafted, observed, moulded, crafted, mapped, pondered, recorded, walked, planted, painted, performed, told stories and so much more.