INWARDS explores an introspective shift in European societies through five audio-visual scenarios. It has been developed as part of the EU Policy Lab's Futures Garden, which aims to support policymakers in envisioning and working with alternative transformational futures to design more future-fit policies in co-creation with its citizens. INWARDS is utilized in workshops with EU citizens and policymakers to stimulate debate on the desirability of the depicted future.

INWARDS envisions a future where European citizens reclaim agency through introspection. As prevailing narratives of perpetual economic growth and technological fixes falter, more and more individuals believe that changing the world begins with personal transformation. By extrapolating current trends in spiritual practices, self-optimization, and societal discourse concerning the self and one's subjectivity, the project anticipates a society where these elements have gained dominance, shaping the daily lives of EU citizens. In doing so, it aims to foster debate and reflection on the scenarios' viability, desirability, and possible consequences.

In five scenes, the project explores different philosophies and facets of this transformation.

The Wishless: a helpline call examines the challenges of letting go of materialistic ideals and desires.

Inner-Attainment: a daily ritual of mental hygiene and introspection leads to a life-changing realization.

Neural Bonfire: a device that networks emotions helps a group overcome their self-centeredness.

Emotional Excellence: a certificate of emotional excellence transforms European work culture.

The Collective Path: a workplace strives to create a better community by orchestrating everyone's individual journey.

INWARDS represents a significant step in using speculative design to inform policymaking. 1) It actively engages EU citizens with future scenarios through workshops and events, collecting and analyzing their feedback. By presenting this feedback to European policymakers, the project provides valuable insights into societal attitudes and desires, shaping the future direction of policy making. 2) It relays the scenarios and feedback from citizens to policymakers to help them understand the hopes and fears associated with the transformative futures. These insights lead to small-scale experiments testing solutions that, if effective, could trigger viable alternative approaches.

Project Background The EU Policy Lab commissioned INWARDS as a speculative design project for their overarching project 'Futures Garden.' The main objective of Futures Garden is to instill a futures-oriented mindset among EU policymakers. To achieve this, speculative artifacts—representing possible future scenarios—are showcased during workshops and various public events to gather reactions and stimulate discussions on ways in which European society might change. The feedback and insights provided by the participants are then used to inform policymakers. Policymakers utilize these insights to discern actionable steps they can take today to prepare for the potential developments outlined in the scenarios.

Project Theme The project speculates about an "introspective turn" in a future European Union, meaning a cultural and possibly ontological shift from external materialist and capitalist ideals to "inner" values. This transition focuses on nurturing the development of the self through resolving internal conflicts, practicing community, and establishing environments conducive to personal growth. Within this cultural framework, agency resides in the evolving perception of both the world and one's place within it, prioritizing personal transformation over direct external change. Many citizens in the story world of INWARDS believe such internal shifts will ultimately influence the external world. The introspective turn initially arises from the ongoing failure of established narratives and promises of change. For instance, our current growth paradigm continues to lead to environmental degradation, inequality, exploitation, and a lack of social mobility, with no prospect of change. Faced with this stagnation, many individuals feel increasingly powerless to effect broader change and thus start changing what they can: themselves. The Horizon Scanning report, focusing on "Dealing with Future Selves," underpins this speculation. It examines how emerging practices and technologies of perception influence our worldview, explores potential shifts in concepts of togetherness due to scientific and technological advancements, discusses the role of collective healing and trauma integration in facilitating change, and considers the impact of our evolving understanding of emotions and acceptance of new technologies on societal dynamics. Building on these insights, our research pointed to trends such as a growing desire for wholeness, an increase in spiritual movements from New Age to atheist churches, a tendency towards retreating into the private sphere, and a rise in self-care practices. These phenomena are possibly the flip side of our current economic system, as they address values not represented in this paradigm. INWARDS prompts us to consider the implications of these trends becoming dominant.

Design Intention and Approach: Balancing Ambivalence INWARDS aims to depict a future in which introspection has become paradigmatic and lay the groundwork for a debate on its implications, challenges and desirability. However, when something becomes paradigmatic, there are inevitably various, sometimes conflicting interpretations and manifestations. We sought to underscore these by crafting four immersive and personal situations narrated through dialogues, monologues, and designed objects, each presenting a different perspective. Additionally, a fifth collective situation brings all main characters into play. These scenarios serve as "windows" into this world, providing enough cues for individuals to fill in the gaps and explore their own viewpoints.
Our goal was to create stories that present contexts within the discussed future that are neither positive nor negative, putting conflicting values up against each other. We choose this approach because to evaluate a future's desirability, we must examine what is at stake. It is inherent in introspection to uncover issues that must be addressed or resolved.This alone creates a thoughtful atmosphere that may be perceived as negative, but it is important not to conflate this with the overall question of the scenario's desirability. We developed a positive and colorful visual style to balance the atmosphere, borrowing from ligne claire aesthetics.
Intro and Scenes The 2050s are a time of deep social reconfiguration. No longer believing in the myth of perpetual economic growth, recipes for self-empowerment, and technological fixes, citizens of Europe seek to regain agency by turning inwards. New cultures of emotional excellence and material minimalism emerge, supported by tools for computer-assisted introspection and emotion sharing. It is a quiet revolution coming from within.
Inner Attainment Martina cultivates her self-awareness through a daily ritual of introspection. A device lets her interact with the layers of her inner world and identify unresolved issues.

The Wishless Gunther strives to turn his ideals of radical minimalism into a reality. With the support of an expert in desire management, he learns to find joy beyond material wealth.

Neural Bonfire Oksana and her friends form a community built on absolute empathy. They are gathering to share their feelings on a neurochemical level, facing everyone's ups and downs together.

Emotional Excellence Hild thrives in helping groups with a collective mission adapt to the individual callings of their members. They have just received a certification of their expertise.

The Collective Path Martina, Gunther, and Oksana are meeting about an upcoming 'neighborhood activation' project. Under Hild's supervision, they weave their own paths into a common mission.

The Process The EU Policy Lab identified the overarching theme for INWARDS and the Future on Demand consortium, a network of European foresight experts, supported its directions through additional Horizon Scanning work. This consortium remained a close collaborative partner throughout the design process.After receiving the project brief and the results of the horizon scanning, we collaborated with the foresight experts of Institutul de Prospektiva to refine the project. This involved conducting desk research into potential focus areas and gathering design references. Subsequently, we embarked on a creative exploration using what we call 'narrative probes.' Taking the form of highly subjective short stories, they are designed to explore productive contexts in which different influences intersect and produce unexpected outcomes. Typically revolving around a ritual, a service or a designed object, these stories aim to challenge existing values by suggesting contexts in which other values become comprehensible, prompting recipients to reconsider their views.We created a range of narrative probes, which we then discussed with the larger project team of Futures Garden. Gathering feedback and insights through these probes, we selected the most promising ones. In the next phase, we designed various speculative objects within the context of the narrative probes and began developing an overall art direction. Finally, we created storyboards and refined the narrative probes into scripts. We closely collaborated with the Institutul de Prospektiva team for the script writing so as to best reflect the future scenarios.The production phase involved voice recording, sound editing, music composition, 3D modeling, color research, animation, rendering, editing, and post-processing. The entire process took three months to complete.

Application and Format The videos are used in workshops with EU citizens, are shown at festivals, and are intended for potential traveling exhibitions, as well as in workshops, trainings and special sessions with EU policymakers. They were created in portrait format, which facilitates editing in social media formats. However, the main reason for this format is the planned exhibition arrangement with five vertical screens.

Contribution to the field of Speculative Design Speculative design has often been featured in exhibition spaces or online platforms, in publications, screenings, and talks. Its role has been to stimulate imagination, provoke thought, or propose alternative ideas. Under the 'Design for Debate' banner, projects have often been crafted as spectacles to be notable, amplified, and disseminated by news media to spark discussions. However, INWARDS takes it a step further: it is intended not only to spark debate but also to be actively studied and harnessed so as to engage policymakers in conversation. With INWARDS in mind, we envision a highly dynamic and adaptable form of speculative design. One that, alongside the debates, constantly evolves from iteration to iteration. A form that not only initiates debates but perpetuates and represents them.