This year we are celebrating our fifth year of Future Machine’s journey to Rotherfield-Peppard in Oxfordshire, Christ Church Gardens in Nottingham, Cannington Primary School in Somerset, The Windermere-Leven waters in Cumbria and Finsbury Park in London.
It is a quiet year, this 5th year. A time for reflection and renewal. After last year’s difficult Year of the The Cabinet, we are only doing what feels right and what we are able, with very little resources and funding between us. Possibly reflecting the state of much of the country we travel through in 2025, hunkering down, making do.
We made it to Kings Woods in Oxfordshire as winter turned to spring and had a quiet walk in the woods with Future Machine, Rachel, Juliet and two guardians Glenn and Richard.
We returned to Christ Church Gardens in Nottingham and went to Mellers Primary School where both classes in Year 3 met Future Machine in the playground and made plants and animals from rubbish and recycling that the children had collected. These were displayed in Christ Church Gardens when we met under the blossom trees. Many people appeared, we ate this year’s blossom cake made by Small Food Bakery across the road using blossoms from the trees, Future Machine appeared, Frank did a tour of the gardens and we celebrated the spring. It was a good year, although some of the trees are struggling, possibly due to the weather extremes over the last few years.
A month later we also had reason to celebrate as Nottingham City Council planted 6 more cherry trees in the garden completing the figure of 8 of trees that was originally planted in front of the church that once stood in the gardens.
Also, this year we are working on ‘A Journey to the Future’, developing a parallel schools project, focusing on how Future Machine appears in schools in Nottingham, Cumbria and Somerset, and exploring the possibility of Future Machine appearing in other schools, in other places, outside of the journeys and rituals of the When The Future Comes project.
We are also interested in how Future Machine’s appearances can support the government’s guidelines on learning about climate change across the curriculum in the schools that we are working with over time. For this to work we have realised that we might need to be more flexible with Future Machine’s journeys and how they currently respond to the seasons. Schools are not set up to respond to cherry trees blossoming and autumn leaves falling.
As a result Future Machine appeared at The Lakes School in Cumbria in June as part of the Great Big Green Week and at a sustainability in schools event at Alexandra Palace in July, meeting 4 different schools over one day in the wooded creative educational space in the park.
It is amazing that we have managed to get this far in these times of pandemics, cuts, cost of living crisis and the impacts of war. On the off years when we don’t manage to get funding we are finding ways to do quieter more spontaneous journeys, appearances, rituals and gatherings occur. Sadly we are unable to make it to Somerset this July as the leaves are abundant on the green leaves, but we made it in March in tree planting season, planting 200 trees in the school playground, and ringing Caroline’s Tree Charter Bell for each tree planted.
We hope to return to the Windermere-Leven waters for the Autumn Equinox, having made new friends and thinking about new ways to gather when summer ends in Cumbria.
I will write some more about Finsbury Park, our residency and the future of When The Future Comes in London as so much has happened since we gathered together last year, to dance, sing and drum, eat cake, draw, circle the trees and speak to the future. Of course we hope to return to our little corner of the park, when the autumn leaves fall, one way or the other, to be able to sing and dance and celebrate the weather, our last gathering before winter, until we return again to Oxfordshire when winter turns to spring in 2026. And so, our worlds keep turning.