Steve (host):
Welcome to the seventh edition of Wonderspace which was originally released as a video orbit on the 12th of October 2020. Since then we've been asking the same 6 questions to people from around the world. Our questions revolve around life and wonder, places of reset and stories of hopefulness, which I think we need more than ever. The setting For all of our interviews is a virtual window seat on the space station, from where we see everything from a different perspective. This week our night time orbit takes us from the Middle East to the South Pacific Ocean.

Steve (host):
And joining us in this ultimate window seat, we welcome Cathy Runciman. Cathy is 1 of the founders of Atlas of the Future, who use their journalistic passions and talents to create an online resource of hope, providing a unique and authoritative perspective on the shape of the world to come. I start by asking Cathy, from this window seat 250 miles above earth, which place, city or country would you want us to fly over and why?

Cathy:
I would fly past the little-known spot in a pine and oak forest outside of the city of Barcelona and it's called Val d'Aura and in that forest there's a 19th century farmhouse which today is where researchers and master's students from the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia live and work. And they live and work there self-sufficiently, so they produce their own energy and their own food and their own building materials. And that was the setting where I spent a couple of days with dear friends, now colleagues, and we hatched the plan to create Atlas of the Future. And that's our online resource of hope, telling stories of people around the world in every area of human activity, working towards more just and sustainable futures. And today we're based in London and Barcelona, but I think Barcelona itself is a city that offers a different model for our futures.

Cathy:
There is something about the city which is telling a more citizen-led story that I think could give us all some hope.

Steve (host):
Cathy, give us a glimpse into your life story so far with an emphasis on what you're doing currently?

Cathy:
Well, I feel this real affinity with Wonderspace and I really appreciate this seat and this view because what I'm pursuing are also stories of hope. So I've worked all my life in media. Initially I worked in business to business publishing and organizing exhibitions and conferences. And I worked in both London and Paris, but I then took a life-changing trip and I went to Nicaragua and Guatemala. And after that, that led me to spend some time in Latin America.

Cathy:
And eventually, from a base I made for myself in Buenos Aires, I persuaded Time Out, with the UK arts and entertainment publishing company, to allow me to explore opportunities for them in that part of the world. So if you fast forward a little bit from there, I ended up leading Timeouts International Business and that was helping local publishers and local media businesses launch their own timeouts. And I think I did that in over 30 cities in the world, so places like Beirut, Beijing, Mumbai and Moscow. And it was really Spending time with people who are utterly passionate about promoting arts and culture in their cities and lifting up local talent was really the great privilege of my working life. Meeting people around the world and hearing their stories is a life-changing experience.

Cathy:
And Atlas of the Future is partly born out of that experience. But I've also had to think a lot about the fact that travel is both economically and politically impossible for some people, but also I've had to come to realize the environmental consequences of a life of a lot of travel. And that's partly what led me to think about the idea of sharing stories as 1 of the ways that we can maybe travel going forwards. And then those discussions that I was in began to center on this idea of an atlas. And an atlas is something that contains journeys, and it contains stories that we can share.

Cathy:
My own journey was shaped not just by the amazing founder of Time Out, who's called Tony Elliott, but there was another chance meeting that really sort of mattered. When I left Time Out, I did it filled with doubt about the future of the smaller independent media. It seemed to me that the possibilities and the business model, in fact, was kind of very challenged, if not completely broken. And so I was really doubting taking a next step in that space. And then I met an amazing woman called Mary Fitzgerald, who's the editor in chief of a fearless and fantastic independent media called Open Democracy.

Cathy:
And the brilliance and the resilience of that team, who I then went on to work with for some time, proved to me that there are other roots and that there is hope for a thriving independent media space, because it's filled with passionate people who are bringing important truths and stories to their audiences. So if you sort of travel back to Val D'Ara and that place in the pines, Those experiences and those questions kind of crystallise in the creation of Atlas of the Future, our repository of stories of hope and wonder, and an event series that we've created alongside it called Fixing the Future. And both of those exist really just to celebrate the courage and the creativity of people who dedicate their talent and their energy to being part of solving the challenges that we collectively face.

Steve (host):
Where on earth is your place of reset or recharge?

Cathy:
1 of my places of reset is absolutely back here in England and it's in the northeast where my dad is from and it's the coast of North Northumberland and I'm sure many people you ask this question for probably choose a place with proximity to the ocean or the sea and for me there's something about walking along that wild and utterly stunning stretch of coastline with its white sand beaches and it's dotted with castles that are hidden among the sand dunes that completely helps to ground me and clear my head.

Steve (host):
What wonder of the natural world excites you the most?

Cathy:
1 of the most amazing places I visited is the Perito Moreno Glacier, which is in Argentine Patagonia, And Patagonia itself is an entire region of natural wonder. But I chose this glacier because I was thinking about it's so extraordinary in its own right. I believe that it's the only glacier in the world that is not retreating at the moment. I mean it's a frozen ice field that actually sort of pushes forward. It's 1 of the most important natural water reserves in the world and it sort of pushes from behind and it ruptures in this most magnificent display of the power of nature.

Cathy:
And currently it seems to be sort of holding steady so it sort of gains as much of its mass as it loses. And I've just felt that that in these times feels in itself to be a story of hope.

Steve (host):
Kathy, what is your story of hopefulness that's not your own? About a person, business or non-profit who are doing amazing things for the world?

Cathy:
So I find it's nigh on impossible for me to be asked to select a single story of hope. I think we on Atlas Future we've got close to a thousand and I'd love to share all of them But I thought I would stay with this theme of storytelling, but I'm still gonna cheat and I'm going to pick 2. And you're gonna have to let me off. But I wanted to pick 2 collectives who I hugely admire. And 1 of them is called If Not Us, Then Who?

Cathy:
And it's a collective of indigenous filmmakers whose short films about their roles as guardians of the forests are completely compelling and vital. And the other collective is Commonwealth theatre based in Wales and also in Bradford and it's led by 2 forces of nature who are Rhiannon White and Evie Manning and I picked them because at a time when cultural life seems so threatened by Covid, Commonwealth are resolutely hopeful because their theatre doesn't require grand old buildings in city centres. They make radical activist theatre in spaces like boxing rings, in people's houses, in disused steelworks and in car parks and they tell working-class stories that need to be heard and this pandemic won't stop them.

Steve (host):
Finally as we prepare to re-enter what insight, wisdom or question would you like to share with us?

Cathy:
So I wanted to share a current question that I'm holding and again it has this link to storytelling. So I've been seeking to better understand what I can learn from indigenous teachings and wisdom. And I've been inspired recently by conversations with people from the coastal First Nations and British Columbia. And that's led me to think about how we could better tell what I'm calling in my mind species first stories, where that species is not us humans, but it's any of the other species that we share this fragile planet with. I would love to hear from others who are thinking about this or to know of examples, because I believe that taking a back seat in the stories we tell and prioritizing not only human endeavor but in fact the endeavor of other species and their creativity and brilliance and survival feels very timely.

Steve (host):
I encourage you to dive into the deep work of Atlas of the Future at atlasofthefuture.org. In her story of hopefulness Kathy passionately shares about 2 amazing collectives. More information about the indigenous filmmakers can be found at ifnotusthenwho.me. The other collective is Commonwealth Theatre based in Wales which can be found at commonwealththeatre.co.uk If you want to find out more about Wonderspace, join the community or listen to the previous episodes. The website is ourwonder.space I want to thank Cathy for joining us on Wonderspace and I hope you can join us again next week for more wonders and stories of hopefulness.