A PRACTICAL MASTERCLASS

Why this masterclass now

Join this practical masterclass about our emotional relationship with the futures: how to shift it, work with it, and train it.

Before we can work with trends, foresight, or strategy, we need to understand the lens we look through.
Many people meet the future with tension: doom, dread, avoidance, or a sense that everything is out of their hands. Or alternatively, with an overdose of enthusiastic optimism. Yet our relationship with uncertainty can be trained. Not through “positive thinking”, but through simple shifts in attention, interpretation, language, and practice, so the future becomes something we can face with steadiness and choice.

This session is facilitated by Mathias Behn Bjørnhof and Jill Hawkins, two practitioners who work professionally with anticipation and futures-driven design, and who believe in building future agency through grounded, practical action.

What you will gain from it

• Understand what shapes your “default future” perspective

• Learn why uncertainty lands the way it does

• Move from future anxiety to future agency

• Strengthen your ability to read signals and stay constructive about risk

• See how design and culture shape what feels “normal” and “possible”

• Leave with a lightweight and personal “futures practice”

Programme

1. Stories that shape the future

Where our imagined futures come from, and how they quietly drive decisions and emotions.

2. The psychology of the unknown

A human look at uncertainty: threat, control, avoidance and hope, plus what helps people stay open and constructive.

3. From anxiety to agency

A practical shift: how to relate to the future in ways that build steadiness and choice.

4. Making futures feel real

How design language and cultural codes shape what we believe is possible, legitimate, and “for people like us”.

5. IRL Futures Safari (outdoor segment)

We go outside to “read the world” together. You’ll train your attention to spotsignals, patterns, and shifting norms with openness, without collapsing into cynicism or hype. We’ll return with observations and we will help you translate them into meaning.

6. Creativity as a trainable skill

Using our safari findings, we’ll play with tools to stretch imagination and observation, and translate insights into opportunity.

7. Your personal futures practice

A simple set of habits and prompts you can use in daily life to sustain a healthier relationship with what might be next.

Wrap-up

Shared reflections, takeaways, and how to keep the practice alive in everyday work (and life).

Facilitators

Jill Hawkins
Trends and human insight researcher 

Jill is a trends and human insight researcher and fashion psychologist, exploring how fashion, lifestyle and creativity shape wellbeing and identity.Through her 20 years experience and education in fashion, design and psychology, she combines design thinking, trend analysis, foresight, and psychological insight to help teams understand cultural shifts and translate theminto more responsible products, services, and narratives. She has worked with organisations including L’Oréal, Arla, Nike and LEGO, and she researches, writes, teaches, and speaks internationally on cultural and design trends, the shifting zeitgeist and the psychology of style, wellbeing and creativity.

Mathias Behn Bjørnhof
Founder of ANTICIPATE

Mathias is the founder of ANTICIPATE, a Copenhagen-based strategic foresight consultancy helping organisations become more futures-ready through foresight, innovation, and facilitation. He has led 50+ foresight projects across sectors, working with corporates, public institutions, NGOs, and international bodies. His work focuses on making the future tangible and usable—turning signals, uncertainty, and complexity into shared language, clearer choices,and practical next steps. Mathias is an accredited Professional Futurist and regularly teaches and guest lectures on foresight, sustainability, and futures literacy.

This workshop is relevant if you:

• Work with strategy, innovation, leadership, design and communication

• Want a more constructive way to engage with the uncertain future

• No prior futures experience needed - only your openness and curiosity