Graphic recording capturing group’s collective imagination, by Rio Holaday 

 

At Hopelab Futures, we believe some of the most interesting ideas about mental health and well-being live in the spaces between generations, disciplines, and communities. We wanted to see what could blossom when people are given the time and space to follow their curiosity and imagine together.

So we hosted our first Futures Salon at Plant Connection SF, bringing together an intergenerational group of longtime Hopelab friends and new friends-to-be from across the Bay Area. 

We centered the afternoon on one guiding question: What is one thing you’re noticing in your life, field, or community that could shape the future of youth mental health, and that you think more people should be paying attention to?

I’ll admit I expected every conversation to lead back to AI. It certainly came up; it was a lens that many discussions passed through (or, as onethe group put it, “the sphincter of the future”). But it wasn’t what generated the most energy in the room. Instead, when people imagined the future of youth well-being, they kept returning to our humanity, and to recovering what we may have lost along the way. Ancestral wisdom, collective effervescence, storytelling, awe and vastness, and intimacy all surfaced as things worth investing in for young people. Together, they pointed toward a future rooted in connection and meaning.

It struck me that the salon itself was a small version of that future. Over the course of the afternoon, I watched new connections and partnerships take root, stories being shared, and a real sense of collective visioning emerge.

And at one point, a pair of hummingbirds interrupted a group discussion and stole the spotlight. Everyone paused to watch. For a moment, the space was filled with exactly what we’d been talking about: wonder, awe, and a shared moment of being human.

A small gift for our guests: an original commissioned artwork by Kaanchi Chopra and a shaker of local wildflower seeds from SF in Bloom.