Who dares to dream?
Why must we take the future into our own hands and believe in utopias again, especially now, in a time of multiple crises? An evening of hope with German bestselling author and thinker Kübra Gümüşay and journalist Lara Billie Rense.
The climate crisis, authoritarian rulers, inequality, wars and the unchecked power of Big Tech and AI: the multiple crises of our time leave us feeling pessimistic and hopeless. Predictions of an impending apocalypse are growing ever louder. Who still dares to dream of a better future?
Yet all great achievements once began as utopian ideas — from democracy and human rights to the fight against disease. “What we cannot imagine cannot come into being,” said the American writer, thinker and feminist bell hooks. Isn’t it precisely now that we need utopias again? Where can we find inspiration in historical utopian experiments and today’s real utopias? How can we train our “muscle of imagination”? And how can we ensure that visions of the future are not left to a privileged few, but that we can shape the future together?
We will explore these questions with the renowned German author and thinker Kübra Gümüşay. For her forthcoming book Zukünfte (“Futures”), she is exploring just futures, real utopias and the politics of imagination in depth. The conversation will be moderated by journalist, author and podcaster Lara Billie Rense.
Speakers
Kübra Gümüşay is author of the bestselling book Sprache und Sein (“Speaking and Being”) and founder of several award winning campaigns and organisations. She is host of the talk series Utopia Talks and Widerstand & Leben (Resistance & Life). Her current research focuses on just futures, real utopias and the politics of imagination. At the end of 2026, her new book Zukünfte (“Futures”) will be published at Ullstein.
Lara Billie Rense works as a journalist across a wide range of platforms. Among other things, she hosts Wat Blijft (“What Remains”) on NPO Radio 1 and has produced several podcasts. In 2024, she wrote the book Een zee van ruimte (“An Ocean of Space”). Rense is also a board member of the Dutch House for Journalism.
