The Library
for a Happy Future
What is a
good life ?
The Library for a Happy Future is a place where creativity, science, traditional knowledge and different generations come together. Together, we ask what makes a good life for ourselves, for one another and for the planet.
How can we speak of a happy future in the midst of a polycrisis? Because confidence in the future grows where people listen to one another and act together. Uncertainty has become the norm almost everywhere. This makes certain questions all the more important: What do we anchor ourselves in? What truly sustains us?
At the Library, we explore what promotes health and wellbeing for people, animals and ecosystems alike. Young and older people come together in dialogue, accompanied by researchers and artists. These encounters give rise to books, music, films and projects created with people, rather than about them. Together, we feel, think and shape the future.
Intergenerational dialogue is our cornerstone. Connecting the past, present and future helps us better understand where we are going. We call this capacity Ancestral Futures Literacy: the ability to shape the future with an awareness of the traditions that have shaped us and with an eye to the generations that will come after us.
A Library Reimagined
We understand libraries as living spaces for discovery, research, and shared thinking. In the age of digital transformation, they can be reimagined as cultural and social spaces where knowledge, creative practice, and exchange come together.
Our work pursues two goals: on the one hand, to better understand the connection between humans, nature, and society through creative practice. On the other hand, to create a living exchange with knowledge, both personal experiential knowledge and the knowledge of other generations and scientific perspectives.
Our approach is artistic, research-based, and scientifically grounded. It combines dialogue, creative practice, as well as analytical and experimental methods. This results not in closed outcomes, but in open, evolving forms of knowledge.
The Library for a Happy Future builds on a collaborative practice with institutional libraries, schools, universities, companies, museums, cities, and other partners. Participants include city residents, groups, school classes, as well as experts from various fields.
It is not based on a fixed idea of art or beauty, but on creative methods of inquiry—through image, sound, text, video, or sculpture. These approaches connect thinking and feeling and open new ways of understanding.
Drawing on Sentipensar (feeling-thinking), the aim is to move beyond a purely self-centered perspective and develop a deeper connection with other people and with nature—landscapes, water, and animals. This process often begins with feeling and then moves into thinking, or accompanies it.
The term Sentipensar comes from Indigenous communities in Colombia and was described by the sociologist Orlando Fals Borda.
"We cannot explore what is good and useful without considering beauty"
Dialogue between Generations
In the Library, young and old meet to share ideas and learn from one another.
Young people bring courage, openness, and the freedom to challenge old structures. Older generations bring knowledge, experience, and perspective.
Only together does the power to create real change emerge. But what happens when all voices are truly heard?
Part of our process entails the involvement of decision makers so that our knowledge may travel and inspire.
Biocultural Peace and One Health form the conceptual foundation of the Library for a Happy Future. Both approaches understand health and wellbeing as shared across humans, nature, and society.
Biocultural Peace describes culture as a practice of care. It focuses on the quality of relationships—with ourselves, with others, and with the natural environment—and on a continuous attitude of awareness, responsibility, and connection.
One Health shows that health cannot be understood in isolation. Humans, animals, plants, and ecosystems are interconnected and continuously influence one another.
Together, these perspectives make clear: health is a connected system that links social, ecological, and cultural dimensions and provides a foundation for sustainability, resilience, and creative practice.
One Health
and Biocultural Peace
Bottles of Vals?
I chose this image because there are different people.
There are people who are rather calm.
There are people who have more strength.
And there are also waters that are so different.
(Photo voice with school children in Vals)
I need water every day
I chose this image because I drink a lot of water in my daily life.
(Photo voice with school children in Vals)
Partners
Information
about the Library
Events. Join us and enjoy!
Results and contributions
