Posted: 28th May 2025

Future Narratives Comes to Life in Ferrara: A Celebration of Imagination, Creativity, and Collective Futures

On the 15th of May the city of Ferrara became a platform for the tales of tomorrow. In the enchanting setting of the Chiostro di San Paolo, young people from across Europe came together to celebrate the Future Narratives Festival in frames of the Erasmus+ project that allows young people to uncover and present the tales of the future via artistic expression, exchange, and collaboration.

After workshops, reflection, and artistic insights, participants had a possibility to demonstrate their own contributions including text performance and video storytelling, interactive games and theater plays. The event was a vibrant tapestry of hope, imagination, and cross-cultural exchange.

A Stage for Futures: Theatre, Tomatoes, and Painted Dreams

A highlight of the event was an energetic theatre performance from the Swedish team, who played politicians, citizens, and change-makers in a future society. With humour, empathy, and reflection, they staged complex issues of sustainability, democracy, and social responsibility questioning how our decisions today shape the world tomorrow.

Equally interesting was a video performance piece with the elements of singing titled “Tomato”, which explored the existence and identity of a tomato – yes, a tomato. What might be trivial on the surface became a deeply philosophical contemplation of identity, transformation, and perception. It challenged the viewer to gaze at the everyday from a totally different perspective.

From Spain, the participants created a beautiful audiovisual presentation that captured the spirit of the Future Narratives Festival itself. Along with video clips, they included live painting, literally sketching out their visions and experiences on paper, blending artistic creation with narrative storytelling.

Games, Words, and Togetherness

The German group surprised everyone with two high-energy performances. The first was an interactive game: when the music stopped, players needed to figure out how not to stand on the ground or a marked area. The idea behind the game was to  encourage cooperation, creativity, and quick thinking. It wasn’t a game; it was a metaphor for confronting unexpected challenges together and finding collective solutions.

Their second act was a moving text-based performance, where two talented German participants delivered evocative spoken word performances. Their words moved us profoundly, bringing to light the emotional and personal dimensions of imagining the future.

A Vision Shared

Nerina Finetto, Future Narratives project creator, reflected “The very great stories move us to do something and step by step we connect the past, the present and the future. We only see a small part of the world, and we need to look at it from the perspective that we also might be wrong.”

Throughout the event, it was clear that Future Narratives is more than a project: it is a space in which the youth can envision, articulate, and determine the world they want to live in. In Ferrara, these different performances were not simply presentations, but efforts at connection, narrative, and dreams shared.

As the sun set behind the Chiostro, the moral was clear: the future doesn’t happen to us – we create it, together.