Abundant Futures / Live
We are excited to announce that we will be hosting the next Abundant Futures / Live at the Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston on June 7th, 2027.
Save the Date!
More info to come soon.
Jha D Amazi, MASS Principal and Director of the Public Memories and Memorial Lab, presenting at Abundant Futures / Live 2025 Matt Teuten
Abundant Futures / Live was an immersive cultural convening that brought together community leaders, creatives, dreamers, and philanthropists to look boldly toward the world we want to build together.
Hosted at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston on November 10th, the event featured a full-day event featuring performances, keynote talks, conversations, films and breakout sessions.
Together, MASS and the wide breadth of speakers, performers, and partners imagined a world where wellbeing, belonging, and flourishing formed the shared foundations of an Abundant Future—and collectively renewed the idea that design can be a collective act of care and imagination. In this envisioned future, Abundance is not measured by accumulation, but by equilibrium—when all species, including our own, thrive in relation to one another.
The day’s program was guided by three essential themes: Wellbeing, Belonging, and Flourishing.
Regie Gibson with Guy Mendilow | Abundant Futures
Abundant Futures / Live kicked off with an unforgettable spoken word performance by Arts for Social Cohesion, featuring Regie Gibson, the Inaugural Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, set to an original score by composer Guy Mendilow.
Amie Shao | Where Life Begins
How do the spaces we design shape the earliest moments of life and the futures that follow? In her powerful keynote, “Where Life Begins,” Amie Shao, Principal at MASS and Lead of the Maternal Newborn Health Lab, invites us to rethink the spaces of childbirth not as neutral containers, but as active forces that determine access, outcomes, and dignity for families around the world.
Nashira Baril | Imagining a Future Where Every Community Has a Birth Center
In this powerful talk, public health advocate and Neighborhood Birth Center founder Nashira Baril shares her personal journey into birth equity, from witnessing her mother’s homebirths as a child to confronting the stark realities of maternal health outcomes in the United States.
Butaro at 15
For fifteen years, The Butaro Hospital has shown what’s possible when dignity, trauma-informed care, and design come together as a force for healing. The design of the hospital—rooted in healing, airborne infection control, and local craft—laid the foundation for MASS’s practice and helped catalyze a regional hub for health equity in rural Rwanda.
Lesley Lokko & Hanif Kara | Design, Wellbeing, and the Future: A Conversation
Architect Lesley Lokko and engineer Hanif Kara sit down for a candid conversation to explore the interconnectedness of personal, cultural, and societal health, and how design shapes the conditions for communities to thrive.
Amy Cuddy | Power, Agency, and the Architecture of Wellbeing
Every year, global happiness rankings spark headlines, but rarely deeper conversation. In her keynote at Abundant Futures / Live, social psychologist and bestselling author Amy Cuddy asks us to look beyond “happiness” and toward the overlooked ingredient that distinguishes the world’s highest-well-being societies: personal power.
Jha D Amazi | Monuments to Possibilities
In this powerful keynote at Abundant Futures / Live, artist, designer, and cultural strategist Jha D Amazi explores how public memory, monuments, and civic space shape belonging, collective healing, and social justice.
Drawing from her experience growing up in Boston and her leadership of the Public Memory and Memorials Lab at MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society), Jha D reflects on how architecture, public art, and memorial design can repair historical harm and expand whose stories are represented in the built environment.
New Lots Library
MASS and the Brooklyn Public Library team in East New York engage with the community as a new library is redesigned to become a beacon for the community.
Moshe Safdie & Linda Johnson | Designing Public Spaces for Belonging
In this Abundant Futures / Live conversation, Architect Moshe Safdie and Brooklyn Public Library President Linda E. Johnson, reflect on the public realm as a shared civic space, exploring how libraries, galleries, and urban institutions can foster belonging, dignity, and community life. From the New Lots Public Library in Brooklyn to cultural buildings around the world, the discussion highlights transparency, daylight, flexibility, and deep community engagement as essential tools for designing public spaces that truly serve their neighborhoods.
Fringe Cities Design Lab: How We Work
Learn how the Fringe Cities Design Lab works embedded in the community, and what they have learned from Poughkeepsie.
William Kamkwamba | How a Windmill Sparked a Movement of Youth Innovation in Malawi
In this powerful keynote, inventor and educator William Kamkwamba, widely known from his memoir and film “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” shares the story behind his extraordinary journey as a global symbol of creativity and resilience.
Moving Windmills Innovation Center | MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society)
In Malawi, where small-scale agriculture dominates and access to education remains fragile, Moving Windmills is building a new, transformative education model. The Innovation Center will be a hub for the organization, featuring a hands-on, collaborative-learning residential campus that inspires African innovators to create local solutions to global problems. Rooted in design-thinking pedagogy, the Innovation Center blends hands-on learning with regenerative practice to unlock alternative pathways out of poverty, offering youth and rural entrepreneurs the tools, mentorship, and space to prototype real solutions for their communities
Native BioData Consortium
The Native BioData Consortium is a nonprofit research institute led by Indigenous scientists and tribal members in the United States, expanding a new center that will further their work within their community.
Mohamed Ali Diini | Repairing Imagination
In this powerful keynote, Mohamed Ali Diini, Founder and Director of Iftin Global, shares his journey from fleeing Somalia as a child to returning decades later to rebuild hope in a country devastated by war. What began as a jobs program quickly revealed a deeper truth: young people weren’t lacking skills, they were living with unaddressed trauma that made it impossible to imagine a future.
The Iftin Peace Hub
The Iftin Peace Hub is a new model for post-conflict reconstruction in Somalia, an integrated campus where young people can heal, learn, build livelihoods, and reconnect with community.
Alan Ricks | Flourishing Together: How Design Can Help People and the Planet Thrive
Drawing on 15 years of nonprofit practice, Alan Ricks, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of MASS, reflects on how architecture can move beyond scarcity thinking toward abundance, creating places that foster well-being, belonging, dignity, beauty, and joy. He outlines MASS’s model of research, catalyst projects, and knowledge-sharing, and highlights how design can intervene where markets and politics often fall short.
Sierra Bainbridge | Planting Systems of Hope: Regenerative Design for an Abundant World
Sierra Bainbridge, Founder and Senior Principal at MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society), invites us to rethink design through the lens of regeneration, interdependence, and radical hope. Beginning with the metaphor of a single seed, Sierra traces how small, well-placed interventions can set entire systems in motion, ecological, social, and human.
Tara Stoinski | Conservation, Community, and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Campus
In this powerful keynote, conservation leader Tara Stoinski, President & CEO of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, shares a deeply personal story that connects community, design, and the future of biodiversity.
In a Tenth of the Time
A film about the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, where design, science, and local stewardship transformed degraded land into a thriving ecosystem.
Deborah Berke & Sarah Elizabeth Lewis | Beauty, Justice, and the Built Environment
Deborah Berke, Dean of Yale School of Architecture and founder of TenBerke Architects, joins Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, founder of Vision & Justice and Harvard professor, to explore how architecture, culture, and beauty shape democracy, belonging, and justice.
Ezra Klein | Beauty, Politics, and the Future of Abundance
Journalist and author Ezra Klein explores how beauty, care, and imagination shape our political, civic, and built environments. Drawing from his book Abundance, Ezra reflected on how thoughtful systems and design can unlock creativity, restore trust, and help communities build toward futures that feel generous rather than constrained.
Community leaders, creatives, and philanthropists gathered at the Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston for an immersive cultural gathering of talks, performances, and interactive experiences. Scott Roth
Abundant Futures / Live, Main Stage Session 1: Wellbeing
GBH, MASS
What does it mean to design a world where everyone can thrive in body and mind? From maternal and newborn health to affordable housing, from disability justice to youth development, wellbeing is about more than survival—it is about dignity, care, and vitality.
Session 1: Wellbeing explored how the places we create shape the conditions of our daily lives, and how design can help ensure that health and opportunity are shared foundations of an abundant future.
Access Unlocked: Through a moderated discussion and visual essay this session explores the aesthetic potential of disability through the lived experience of disabled practitioners. Featuring: Jeff Mansfield, MASS; Emily Sara, cripple; Alice Sheppard, Kinetic Light; and Catherine Townsend, Ford Foundation Matt Teuten
Mind and Space: Drawing from trauma-informed, restorative, and wellness-based design principles, this session asks how design can cultivate belonging, dignity, and comfort. Featuring: David Saladik, MASS; Amy Cuddy; Amy Schectman, 2Life Communities; Scott Halpert, Garrett's Space; and Patricia Gruits, MASS Scott Roth
Future Builders: A panel with an interactive Q&A, this session considers how design, storytelling, and social innovation can expand opportunity and agency for youth. Featuring Chris Kroner, MASS; Sandra M. McCroom, Children’s Services of Roxbury; Mohamed Ali Diini, Iftin Global; William Kamkwamba, Moving Windmills Project; and Geraldine Laybourne, DAY ONE Early Learning Community Matt Teuten
Beginning With Dignity: Combining a moderated conversation with a live musical performance, this session opens space for envisioning childbirth as healing, just, and transformative. Featuring Nashira Baril, Neighborhood Birth Center; Amie Shao, MASS; Neel Shah, Maven Health; Tej Nuthulaganti, The Beginnings Fund; with Hannah Collins, Lisa Wong, Shaw Pong Liu, Jenn Chang Scott Roth
Breakout sessions opened space for dialogue, creativity, and connection, from music and storytelling to interactive conversations on healing, youth agency, behavioral health, and disability design justice. These sessions remind us that wellbeing is collective work, sparked by conversation, creativity, and community.
Abundant Futures/ Live, Main Stage Session 2: Belonging
GBH, MASS
What does it mean to create communities of trust, memory, and shared purpose? Belonging means creating spaces where everyone has not only a place, but also access to opportunity.
Session 2: Belonging is not only about feeling at home, it is about being empowered to shape the future together, with joy as well as reckoning.
How Belonging Shapes Democracy: How does expanding our shared narrative reshape the possibilities of democracy and belonging? Featuring Kendra Field, Tufts University; Jeneé Osterheldt, The Boston Globe; Brandon M. Terry, Harvard University; Jha D Amazi, MASS; and Imari Paris Jeffries; Embrace Boston Matt Teuten
Art in the Public Realm: This session explores how artists, designers, and institutions are reimagining public art as both personal tools for social engagement and collective expression. Featuring: Ruth Erickson, Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston; Karin Goodfellow, Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, City of Boston; Alison Crony Moses; Abigail Satinsky, Wagner Foundation; Sneha Shrestha aka IMAGINE Scott Roth
Beyond Preservation: This session explores how themes of continuation, resistance, and the future of cultural patterns live out in our built environment. Featuring: Megan Minoka Hill, Harvard Project on Indigenous Governance and Development; Joseph Yracheta, Native BioData Consortium; Joseph Kunkel, MASS; Erin Dearborn Coryell, Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies; Jonathan James Perry; and Iron River Singers Scott Roth
Investing in Futures: This session asks how bold investments can shift expectations, bend markets, and move policy toward a society where belonging is the norm, not the exception. Featuring: Karen Conway, MASS; Beth Foster-Chao, Autodesk Foundation; Marika Anthony-Shaw, PLUS1; Lesley Lokko, African Futures Institute; Charlotte Wagner, Wagner Foundation; and Katie Swenson, MASS Scott Roth
The Belonging breakout sessions continued to create space for dialogue, creativity, and connection, hosting sessions on the role of philanthropy in design, how themes of continuation and resistance live out in our built environment, public art, and how belonging can shape democracy.
Abundant Futures / Live 2025, Main Stage Session 3: Flourishing
GBH, MASS
Session 3: Flourishing challenges us to imagine futures where people and the planet thrive together.
The way forward to fully flourishing means making sure everyone has at least the basic things they need to live with dignity and opportunity. At the same time, we must stay within the limits of what the Earth can sustain without causing lasting harm. When we meet both of these goals, we create a fair and sustainable space where life can flourish.
SNACKTIME, Philadelphia-based soul and funk band featuring Nico Bryant, Sam Gallerstein, Austin Marlow, Larry Monroe Jr., Eric Sherman, Michael Spearman, and Ben Stocker. Scott Roth
String Quartet, featuring Shaw Pong Liu, Dr. Lisa Wong, Jenn Chang, and Hannah Collins during Breakout 1A: Beginning with Dignity. Scott Roth
Jean Appolon Expressions, A Haitian Folkloric and contemporary-infused Dance Troupe Matt Teuten
First Sounds, Montreal =-based neoclassical trio, featuring Sarah Neufeld, Richard Reed Parry, and Rebecca Foon Matt Teuten
Abundant Futures / Live featured numerous live performances of poetry, dance, and music, offering energizing and uplifting sensory pieces between the day's conversations and presentations.
Linda Johnson, President and CEO of the Brooklyn Public Library, and Moshe Safdie, Founding Partner at Safdie Architects, speak in conversation to how public art, libraries, and philanthropy can spark action and social cohesion. Matt Teuten
Northern style Pow-wow singing group Iron River Singers brings together members of the Chippewa, Wampanoag, Abenaki, and Passamaquoddy Nations. Matt Teuten
Haitian folkloric and contemporary-infused dance organization, Jean Appolon Expressions Matt Teuten
Abundant Futures / Live offered a day of gathering to discuss the urgent challenges of today, and envision the possibilities of tomorrow. Matt Teuten
Tara Stoinski, CEO & Chief Scientific Officer of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, speaking at Abundant Futures / Live 2025 Matt Teuten
Executive Producer
Model of Architecture Serving Society
Curators
Alan Ricks, Christian Benimana, Patricia Gruits
Producer
David Mistretta
Programming
Maggie Jacobstein Stern
Partnerships and Fundraising
Katie Swenson, Hope Blanchette, Joey Pierce
Film, Media, and Communications
Cristoforo Magliozzi, Thatcher Bean, Antonieta Bocxe, Amber LaCroix
Art Direction and Graphic Design
Fred Swart
Production and Programming Support
Sarah Agatoni, Emma Quigley
Public Media Partner
MASS partnered with GBH, the leading multiplatform creator for public media, as the exclusive public media partner for the event. Live talks and performances were streamed out virtually for general audiences.
Executive Leadership
Susan Goldberg, Tina Cassidy
Partnership Management
Annie Shreffler
Videography
Peter Hyzak, Katya Veber, Grace Danehy
Switching
Nathalie Thibodeau
Editing
Peter Hyzak
Venue, Catering & Design
Institute for Contemporary Art / Boston
Ryan Arnette, Joe Fanning, Kelly Gifford, Michelle Walker, Dan Biser, Bernadette Benoit, Em McGory
The Catered Affair
Amanda Gallagher, Ken Barrett-Sweet
Rentals & Design:
ACME, PEAK Rentals, Taylor Creative, Rose Brand, Winston Flowers
Additional Production Credits
