Parallel Presents

Parallel Presents is a participatory and creative methodology for creating positive visions of sustainable worlds that can be used in diverse settings to generate fresh ideas and a shared sense of hope and possibility.

Parallel Presents was created by Professor Amy Twigger Holroyd at Nottingham School of Art & Design.

Stage 2: prototyping

Description:

This activity asks you to create a visual or material prototype to represent everyday life in a fictional world, with a focus on a particular system/sector such as clothing, housing or food.

The activity described here is designed to speculate on a large-scale system, but it can be adapted to focus on a particular locality or organisation.

The activity works well in a small group, but can also be carried out individually.

Activity:

Before you start, note the rules of Parallel Presents. All activities should explore:

  • a contemporary reality in a parallel world, not the future in our world
  • a positive and enticing system, in terms of individual satisfaction, social justice and sustainability
  • a system that is physically possible but pushes beyond what feels plausible in our world.

Step 1

Choose a description of a positive fictional fashion culture or system to use as a starting point. This could be a 100-word outline of a parallel world created in Stage 1 or another source.

Step 2

To develop your understanding of your chosen world, consider: 

  • If you visited this world, what would feel the most surprising or strange?
  • What is an everyday person’s experience? 

Use the information provided in the Step 1 source. As you flesh out your understanding of the world, bring in your own ideas. Your interpretation of the culture or system will be unique.

Aim for an engaging and positive vision that stretches the imagination in unexpected directions.

Step 3

Generate ideas for an object or image that you could create to represent everyday life in the fictional world. 

Imagine that you have travelled to the world and brought something back, or taken a photograph, to show people what life is like there. 

Consider the objects, media and spaces that someone living in the world would experience and that you could create as a prototype. 

Select the idea that communicates the distinctiveness of the fictional system most effectively.

Step 4

Create your prototype.

Step 5

Write a short text to explain your prototype. Remain within the fiction: write from the perspective of a traveller who has just returned from the parallel world. 

Want more guidance?

Further guidance for this process is provided on the Fashion Fictions site. It is designed to address the fashion system, but can easily be adapted for other areas of interest.