A magic word to reimagine your future
Issue #44 🔙 the story of 'Sankofa', collective imagination + our longest links section ever
THE QUEST DIGEST by Creative Quests is a treasure chest of ideas & stories exploring what it means to live an illuminating, creative life. Delivered when inspiration and creativity strike. Subscribe to receive each issue or send to a friend in need of a creative boost.
Dear Questers,
Sam here 👋 Coming to you today with a newsletter overflowing with:
💭 A collective imagination session to join this Thursday
🔙 A magical Ghanaian word that will change your relationship to the future
⭐️ The longest and strongest list of illuminating links I’ve ever compiled.
The Quester Almanac
This year we are co-dreaming & building an archive of ways to creatively explore & perceive the world.
💭 a publication / a digital space / a portal where people can venture into themes we’ve explored on previous Quests to fuel many more personal creative adventures into the future.
Thanks to all who came to Imagination Wander #1 last week. If you want to contribute to the early stages of this project…
🔮 Join us in session #2 hosted by Sparks
🗓️ Thursday 18th April
⏰ 6-7.30pm BST / 1-2.30pm EST
Remember your future with Sankofa.
Like many people, I started this year plotting what I wanted 2024 to look like… in and out lists, resolutions, intentions. I end up doing them all. But a personal favourite method is choosing A Word for the Year.
Maybe you have one too - let me know in the comments!
Toward the end of last year I had a feeling that I couldn’t shake. Somehow in this Quest to discover new ways to understand our creativity and explore the world - that things were getting lost along the way. Ideas, people, practices…
In a culture obsessed with growth and novelty it’s so easy to feel like we need to learn more, do more, be more to unlock the next chapter of our lives & work.
But then I remembered, Sankofa.
Sankofa is a word in the Akan language of Ghana, which has no direct equivalent in English, but translates as "it’s not taboo to go back and get it".
It's often symbolized by a bird with its head turned backward while its feet face forward, carrying an egg in its mouth.
While the direct translation might not light up your imagination - what it symbolises will.
Sankofa represents the importance of learning from the past to move forward. It represents the idea of reflecting on and drawing wisdom from the past (both historically and personally) in order to build a better future.
Sankofa makes us ask the question… what if we already have the knowledge, the skills, the experience, the people, we need to create the future we imagine? Perhaps the answers are lightly buried somewhere inside of us.
What does this look like in reality?
For Creative Quests: we are architecting a process of revisiting our last 12 themes and inviting past Questers along for the ride with us - in an effort to get back and collect the things we forgot. A inspiration excavation of sorts. It’s what The Quester Almanac represents.
Over 2024 we hope to retrieve all the ingredients we need to design the kind of home for peoples creativity and curiosity that we imagine: an ecosystem where past Quests fuel future Quests and past Questers light the way for future Questers.
Exactly what that looks like - we don’t know right now. But I have faith, that because of Sankofa, that soon we will.
While you’re here… a magic Sankofa story for you:
I learnt the word Sankofa in 2017. I was researching an installation I was making for the London Design Festival, to be held the iconic Brixton Village Market - an indoor market in south London known for its worldly offerings.
‘Untranslation’ was a selection of flags that we dubbed a ‘cultural design dictionary’. Myself and designer Toni Hollis surveyed all the business owners of the market to learn their native tongues. From this we researched unique, untranslatable words in all the languages they spoke and designed large flags showcasing them to hang outside their units. A definition on one side, a piece of design which visually translated the word on the other.
Sankofa was our Ghanaian word. Here’s the design:
As a firm believer in the creative power of a wander-with-intention; during the research & design process for this project, I would wander through the market on my way home every night after work . Hoping (knowing!) that inspiration for words & designs would come through being there and talking to the business owners in the market.
One night, I went wandering with the specific intention to find out more about Sankofa - a word I’d found researching online. Within maybe 2 minutes of being in the market, I turned a corner and quite literally bumped into somebody; my phone, cascading from my hands, hit the floor and smashed.
The usual apologies and pleasantries followed. Myself and the lady got chatting about what we were both doing there… I told her about the art project I was working on. She asked me ‘do you have any words for Ghana? That’s where I’m from.’ Somewhat stunned, I told her I had come across this curious word, Sankofa…
The translation we used on the flag is pretty much verbatim how she described what Sankofa meant to her. Not only that… the truly insane part of this story is that she was a descendant of Kwame Nkrumah: the first African-born Prime Minister of Ghana, whose radical vision and bold leadership helped lead Ghana to independence in 1957.
In this moment it was very much evident that the universe was cheering us on.
The moral of the story: take your ideas for walks and eventually your idea will start walking you…
“What you seek is seeking you”
― Rumi
A round up of curious finds from our Quester world.
🔙 Learn more about Sankofa as a word, concept & symbol.
✂️ Collé highlights the most forward-thinking, technically innovative, and idiosyncratic collage artists of today.
📻 Wild Memory Radio: Dive into an audio journey of the places that inspire creative minds. This is truly beautiful stuff from We Transfe.
🍏 New York City is the world capital of endangered languages
⏳ Vanishing Time: a calligraphy clock that disappears just like moments.
🤸♀️ The inaugural ‘International day of Play’ has been announced for June 11th
👩💼 Why the C Suite is missing the ‘Chief Creative Officer’
🌳 Onboarding Nature: Imagine if the nature of business was nature’s business
📚 Rebel Book Club are searching for new worldwide hosts (if you like non-fiction books and you’re a community leader - this is for you!)
🖨️ Printernet - the service that turns your online reading highlights into a periodical printed magazine. I adore this.
🧠 Brilliant Minds: Investing in daring, innovative founders over 60. I cannot emphasise this enough… F*CK YES.
📵 The Offline Club (NL): swap screen time for real time.
Finally…
I love hearing from readers, and am always looking for feedback. What do you like most in The Quest Digest? What would you like to see more or less of?
If you enjoy what you read here, I’d love it if you shared it with a friend or two; you can send them here to sign up.
Looking back to move forward,
Sam x
Quest Guide / Founder
@saaamfurness
THE QUEST DIGEST by Creative Quests is a treasure chest of ideas & stories exploring what it means to live an illuminating, creative life. Delivered when inspiration and creativity strike. Subscribe to receive each issue or send to a friend in need of a creative boost.
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