Fall 2025 edition

Welcome back to Notes on a Present Future. If this is your first time here, this newsletter uplifts the stories and the work of people shaping the world to build just futures now.

What’s inside

1. A note from my desk

2. Updates (mine and, more importantly, yours)

3. Reading, watching, listening

4. Stay in touch and collaborate with us.

A note from my desk

I've been thinking about legacies, footprints, imprints, and influences. What marks do we make on the world, and how do they shape what comes next? I'm not asking the question for the sake of nostalgia, but to think about how we build from now, what kind of heirs we are to the advocates and builders who came before us, and what kind of ancestors we will be to the people who pick up the strands of our work to weave into new ones.

These questions have been on my mind for the past few months as I've been working on a concept note for the next iteration of the Center for Transformational Change. The process of writing has meant looking backward and forward at once—examining how the work I've done over the past twenty years leads into what I do now and how my work will expand into the future. I'm writing about the imprint we hope to make in this political moment, what we'll commit to between 2026 and 2030, the dream list of people we want to work with, the new stories about collective leadership and liberation we want to tell, and what we hope to build by the end of that period. I'm thinking about the full arc of experiences we'll co-create with our communities—creators, advocates, grassroots leaders—and how each project flows from one to the next, the connections that link us in common mission and collective action, and how together we move toward political hope and social transformation. This is the work of creating a shared legacy, and building the paths others will follow.

This kind of work requires a particular type of compass, and another reason I've been thinking about legacies is in honor of my friend and colleague Jessica Clark of Dot Connector Studio, who passed away last month, and who always had hers pointed toward the future. Her loss was shocking. I had just seen her at a virtual gathering she convened on democracy and futures, the kind of gathering she was always planning or attending. Jessica was always at the forefront of thought, always anticipating what's next, while remaining deeply grounded in community. The effects of the way she worked, thought, and brought communities together rippled outward in profoundly generative ways. She was one of those people who could move fluidly between structures, weave networks, and build bridges to worlds other people can't see yet. She knew this work was often unseen and underappreciated, but she committed to it. She knew what was coming. And she spent years preparing us for it, building the networks and creating the blueprints we'd need when democracy itself came under threat. Jessica's legacy is a body of work of immeasurable value but visible in the networks she built and strengthened. What an imprint she has left on the world.

This past weekend we saw another kind of imprint in Fall of Freedom, a national campaign designed by Laura Raicovich, Dread Scott, and my friends Lynn Nottage and Cassils, among hundreds of others. Fall of Freedom built legacy in real time—resisting and creating simultaneously, showing through art and culture that oppression will never have the final word. Across the country, artists, organizers, and communities staged performances, exhibitions, and gatherings that modeled resistance in action. Projected messages on buildings, music in public squares, and community storytelling all served a dual purpose: rejecting what is unacceptable while offering new stories of possibility. The campaign underscores that the relationships we build, the beauty we create, and the narratives we reshape through art and culture can outlast the forces that seek to repress them. Our capacity to frame and reframe, interpret and reinterpret through creative work becomes the blueprint future movements will follow. Fall of Freedom declares: this is not acceptable to us—and, crucially, shows those who come after exactly how resistance can look.

Now, to the updates…

Updates 

Mine:

My updates will be brief this issue. I’ll send out an end-of-year newsletter next month with much more detail about the work, the connections, and the insights from this full and fraught year. 

For now, one quick note: For CfTC’s 4th anniversary on September 29, 2025, we released our latest framework on narrative power called, Narrative Infrastructure for Narrative Power: A Framework for Community-Led Change. In an era of media consolidation, institutional capture, polycrisis, and democratic decline, communities need ownership of systems that create, distribute, and sustain their narratives. Without community leadership, existing power dynamics persist rather than transform toward justice and opportunity. With this framework, we’ve expanded on our legacy of work in narrative strategy, production, and distribution to support those of us dedicated to building the systems that catalyze narrative power. The framework is a tool for both reflection and strategic planning. Use it to assess your role, map your challenges, and determine strategic actions. Learn more here and here. If you would like to request the framework, please write to: info@transformationalchange.co.

Yours:

For those of you interested in ethical technology

AI and Unlikelihood Feminist tech policy lab SUPERRR pushes back against AI hype, arguing that AI systems—trained on historical data—can only reproduce the past, not imagine just futures. They advocate for opting out of harmful tech, prioritizing human creativity over algorithmic outputs, and building improbable, equitable futures that AI cannot design. 

Using GenAI responsibly in violence research Linda Raftree and Elizabeth Dartnall's guide "Using AI Responsibly for Research on Violence Against Women" offers critical frameworks for researchers navigating GenAI use. The guide provides five essential questions to assess ethical implications while balancing potential benefits with risks to privacy, consent, and bias in sensitive research contexts. 

Global Call for AI Red Lines My friend and colleague Anoush Rima Tatevossian worked on the Global Call for AI Red Lines, which names specific international prohibitions on AI uses or behaviors deemed too dangerous to permit. The campaign argues that red lines are urgent, feasible, and widely supported, representing the most practical step the global community can take now to prevent severe risks while allowing safe innovation. 

Artist Voices in AI Electric South, for which I serve on the board, has been celebrating its 10th anniversary this year with a series of events. They recently hosted the Electric Africa Webinar Series, a three-part lead-up to our AI and Immersive Media Convening 2025. For nearly a decade, Electric South has championed African immersive artists and technologists — and as AI transforms creative economies, their perspectives are essential. Hosted by Adwoa Ankoma, the series featured Ingrid Kopp, Sandra Rodriguez, and Brett Gaylor, whose conversations set the tone for the convening, where artists, technologists and policymakers shaped principles for AI in creative practice. Catch up on the series at Electric South’s YouTube Channel

Spotlight on Big Tech Power Damini Satija has launched Breaking up with Big Tech, a new analysis calling on governments to rein in the influence of the five dominant tech companies—Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple—through a lens that bridges competition policy and human rights. The briefing highlights how their control over infrastructure, data, and AI development isn’t just a market issue, but a human rights concern, shaping the very trajectory of generative AI tools. This work, spearheaded by Hannah Storey with contributions from Pat de Brún, Joshua Franco, and others at Amnesty Tech, builds on years of civil society efforts to explore anti-trust approaches as a path to safeguarding digital rights. Read more at the Amnesty International Briefing. 

For those of you interested in international development, human rights, and global affairs

SolidariLabs Skylight's SolidariLabs program is entering its 10th year and expanding to connect Latin American filmmakers and activists with U.S. communities. The new phase will document migration stories from both sides of the border, including testimonies from people who've been deported, as part of their Borderland_Underground project. 

UN and the crisis of liberalism The New Humanitarian's Rethinking Humanitarianism podcast examines how the global rise in illiberalism has locked the UN and humanitarianism in crisis. Host Tammam Aloudat and guests Mark Leon Goldberg and Anjali Dayal (my niece– proud auntie moment!) explore whether we're facing not just a funding crisis, but a deeper crisis in how liberalism is practiced—and what a better path forward looks like. 

Mapping the Future of Risk: RAKSHA Intelligence Futures has introduced Anticipatory Intelligence, a new analytical discipline designed to identify structural shifts before they escalate into crises. This approach integrates research, risk analysis, foresight, and intelligence to examine the “pre-crisis present,” when systems begin to reconfigure. Building on the Fracture Atlas 2025, the Quiet Fracture Protocol™, and Sentinel briefings, RAKSHA is formalizing this discipline to support institutions navigating rapidly evolving global systems. Simultaneously, RAKSHA has released Fracture Atlas 2025, a comprehensive mapping of how institutional collapse is engineered through shared vulnerability structures. The report explores how independent actors adopting similar practices create correlation points that can be triggered by external shocks, offering a new intelligence infrastructure for understanding fractures before they emerge.

Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection The updated Social Change Now Guide provides a practical framework for understanding and engaging in social change. It organizes key concepts into areas such as personal reflection, systems thinking, and collaboration. The guide includes reflection prompts, real-world examples, and exercises to help individuals and organizations map their own roles and connections in the social change ecosystem. It also offers a visual map version and a worksheet to support group discussion or self-guided exploration. 

For those of you interested in new economic and organizational models

Ten Years of Art, Community, and Liberation. I’m proud to be a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, which marked a decade of transformation this autumn with BGDM X, celebrating how a grassroots movement grew into a global network of over 5,000 women and non-binary people of color in documentary film. What started as connections between creatives excluded from industry circles has evolved into powerful initiatives including the Talent Directory, Industry Access Program, and Pay Transparency efforts that have shifted power and culture across the field. The anniversary celebration has included collecting community memories for a retrospective coffee table book, expanding the signature Docs Get Down parties to LA and Philly beyond New York, and taking Industry Access Programming on tour to cities including Toronto, DC, San Francisco, and New Orleans. BGDM invites supporters to help shape the next decade through donations, partnerships, and participation in upcoming events celebrating ten years of art, community, and liberation.

Citational Splits Metalabel platformed artist Mindy Seu's A Sexual History of the Internet, introducing "Citational Splits"—a publishing model where 30% of book profits are redistributed equally to all people cited in the work. Using Metalabel's platform, the book reimagines citation as a form of payment, crediting and compensating everyone who shaped the work. 

SystemInvesting and SystemFinance Dark Matter Capital released a report exploring how investments could support whole systems, with insights on value reimagining, governance, and system-scale financing. A case study on a mid-sized industrial city illustrated these ideas in practice. TWIST co-hosted a three-part Learning Series with Dark Matter Labs to dive deeper on: Value Structuring, Investment Strategies, and Capital Structuring and Core Functions. 

Slow Distribution and Cinema Ecosystems Producer Ted Hope outlines the three-phase approach behind NonDē, his initiative to build a vibrant, non-dependent cinema ecosystem. The project focuses on authored work, community building through FilmStack, and creating alternatives to mainstream distribution—working toward a better future for independent filmmakers. 

For those of you interested in creativity, storytelling, and the arts

Undersight Cassils debuted Undersight at Nuit Blanche Toronto—a 12-hour endurance performance using high-powered lights and Morse code to beam words recently restricted by U.S. federal agencies (like "trans," "gender," and "race") into the night sky. The piece confronts censorship and surveillance while serving as a distress signal and call to resistance. 

Scenes from the Climate Era David Finnigan premiered his play Scenes from the Climate Era, a kaleidoscopic series of vignettes tackling climate conversations with humor and heart. Four performers guide audiences through denial, optimism, grief, and action in this raw, funny look at how climate discourse shapes our lives. 

A courtroom climate game Joost Vervoort is part of the team behind All Will Rise, a narrative deck-builder where you play a lawyer fighting for the rights of the earth, taking a corrupt billionaire to court for a river's murder. Combining courtroom drama with worldbuilding, the game aims to inspire "inappropriate joy" while tackling real-world environmental inaction. 

The Freedom Seeker Ruchira Gupta has added fiction writing to her advocacy toolkit and her latest novel, about a young Indian tween who crosses the U.S.-Mexico border, is a timely and compelling read for the young adults in your life. 

For those of you interested in narrative, cultural, and systems change

Six Principles for Designing the Future Changeist shares six guiding principles for creating public experiences that make the future tangible, engaging, and meaningful. From embracing complexity and fostering collaboration to balancing reflection with action, these insights offer a practical roadmap for anyone designing experiences that matter. 

Narrative and Solidarity Infrastructure Discussions of “narrative infrastructure” are in the ether at exactly the right time they are needed. Another framework we at CfTC love is the BLIS Collective’s. They released new research advancing a six-part series on movement transformation, arguing that lasting change requires both narrative infrastructure—systems that help liberatory stories take root in culture—and solidarity infrastructure—the relationships that enable deep cross-movement collaboration. Their inside-outside strategy braids narratives across a membership collective of artists, organizers, and cultural workers while supporting coalition-building, cultural production, and applied research to transform the foundational myths of American society through “radical collaboration” and moving “at the speed of love.” Their latest report, Fabric of Repair, explores how shared narratives between Black and Indigenous communities can strengthen support for Reparations and Land Back initiatives. A randomized experiment with 4,506 participants tested three narrative approaches, revealing strong baseline support (76% for Reparations, 80% for Land Back) and significant cross-movement solidarity. The “braided narrative” connecting both movements proved most effective, though a persistent “hope gap” remains between public support and belief in the achievability of these goals.

Fiction's Role in Shaping Views on Racial Equality Harmony Labs analyzed 400+ streaming titles to understand how audiences engage with racial equality stories. Key finding: viewers across all political values are choosing media that frames racial equality as a systemic issue, not just an individual one. The research identifies four distinct audience types and maps what each watches—from period dramas like Dark Winds to sci-fi like Supacell. The takeaway for storytellers: different audiences see themselves in the journey toward equality, but they recognize progress in different ways. Match your story arcs to how each group believes change happens. 

Doc Filmmaking Legal Starter Kit Elaine McMillion Sheldon's Doc Filmmaking Legal Starter Kit offers documentary filmmakers instant access to essential, customizable legal documents including release forms for appearances, locations, and materials—providing professional legal protection without the cost of hiring an attorney. 

Nonfiction Accountability The Documentary Accountability Working Group (DAWG) has released a new teaching syllabus to accompany their Framework for Values, Ethics, and Accountability in Nonfiction Filmmaking. The guide supports film instructors in teaching principles around collaboration, care, and accountability in documentary practice—addressing how power dynamics, representation, and ethics intersect in the field. 

The Collective Lens Library  Peace is Loud has launched an online resource directory with original tools, templates, and guides supporting filmmakers' impact work. The library includes resources on impact strategy, participant care, distribution partnerships, and budget templates—making care-driven filmmaking accessible to all.

Exploring the Impact of XR Sandra Gaudenzi has published two new XR impact case studies in collaboration with Michaela Ternasky-Holland and Fanni Fazakas. On The Morning You Wake examines how a VR experience about nuclear threats influenced audience perceptions and engagement, while Missing 10 hrs VR explores a highly interactive experience designed to reduce the bystander effect in nightlife settings. Both case studies include detailed documentation, insights, and templates to support teaching, research, and the design of XR projects for social impact. Explore the studies: On The Morning You Wake | Missing 10 hrs VR

Narrating the movement The team behind Fall of Freedom created a resource list of banned words and titles, and a list of artworks demonstrating the dangers of authoritarianism to support your knowledge and reflection.

Reading, watching, listening

What I’m reading: 

John Ganz’s When the Clock Broke, about the politics of the US in the early 1990s, tracks one of the origin points of the dark times in which we find ourselves now. It’s a great thesis, and strangely enough, a very fun read (especially if you lived through it the first time). 

Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is searing, human, and pushes you back into a demanded reckoning that is and will always be necessary. 

Mary’s Shelly Frankenstein. I read it in high school, then again in college, and I just had to again. (I haven’t seen the movie yet, though. That will be for the next newsletter.) It’s very worth a re-read. 

What I’m watching: 

The Celebrity Traitors. Seriously, what began with my desire to watch Alan Cumming and my love for playing Werewolf has turned into a mild obsession with this franchise. I’ve watched every English language version of the show. And this season is a delight. 

Surf Rider. The choreography in this piece is dynamic and delicious. I’ve watched it on repeat several times. 

Flamenco Party. I danced Flamenco as a child – it was formative – and so I stop every time I find a new entry into it. This from the Romanian singer Gya is a lovely watch and listen.

What I’m listening to: 

Lux. With its orchestration, its polyglot lyrics, its woman saints, and its soaring range, Rosalía’s latest album really is as good as people say it is. 

The BPM by Sudan Archives. Go ahead and dance. 

Abel Selaocoe’s Four Spirits is classical, jazz, African in equal measure. The combination is stunning.

See you next month.

In solidarity and joy,

Lina

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The photo above is of a performance by Ustad Fareed Ayaz & Abu Muhammad Qawwal Brothers at Town Hall, NYC. The word in the image above them is astha, a word of Sanskrit origin that means faith, belief, or hope. Of course I had to take the photo.

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