Juneteenth 2070
On the 40th anniversary of the inaugural Dream Lab, we’re here covering the 10th location opening in the revolutionary land of Hawai’i.
The Dream Labs have been a part of a reparations process in media and journalism sparked by artists, media-makers, journalists, and storytellers from across the globe. The initial Dream Lab was part of a reparations response to the long legacy of harm in journalism, an industry that built its wealth on the extraction of Black people. Now part of school curriculum, it is well known that the very first newspaper in the United States acted as a broker for enslaved people, Black newspapers were often bombed, and Black journalists were targeted for daring to tell the truth about the United States.
This particular Dream Lab will be opening on sacred ground, in the newly freed land of Hawai’i. This Dream Lab will be led by a collective of 10 people aged from 10 years old to 95 years old. People from across the islands will be able to come and cultivate ideas in the world-renowned cafe, plant new visions for liberation in its dream garden, learn about the history of reparations and the fight to free Hawai’i in a 3D immersive exhibit, and write the next headlines for the future in our writing class.
This Dream Lab will be just as beautiful on the outside as it is on the inside. It will take the place of an old police station that has been redistributed as a part of a local reparations process.
On the History of Dream Labs
Beginning in 2020, people from newsrooms, media houses, and philanthropists worked in collaboration to build grassroots responses to the legacy a harm, particularly in the field of journalism. As an industry with a deep history of violence, people wondered what role the art of storytelling could play in delivering some version of repair, or renewal, to communities. One of the main questions being asked in this moment was, “What role does journalism play in healing?”.
What surfaced was that journalism’s responsibility to healing was inextricably connected to its potential for community building through storytelling, investigative journalism, mutual aid, and information sharing.
These conclusions were not new ones, though. They stemmed from decades of Black journalists and newsrooms that practiced community-building and connection through journalism.
Black storytellers, writers, musicians, artists, librarians, and organizers collaborated to create a public square that could bring the worlds of storytelling, mutual aid, and information sharing together. They set out to create an inviting, irresistible space for community that was grounded in joy, solidarity, care, reciprocity and accountability. And that was how the first Dream Lab was born in St.Louis.
Our Communal Success
Since the opening of the first Dream Lab, in the early part of 2027 in St. Louis, which was actually born of a library and a public newsroom, Dream Labs have helped people both rediscover and invent ways to communicate stories and strengthen their communities. Their locations in St. Louis, Belize, Palestine, Jamaica, Tanzania, North Carolina, Brazil, Oakland, Puerto Rico, and now Hawai’i have become centers for civic education, idea exchange and a place to pick up global journalism skills.
They have become a new hub for research, contributing community stories and history that was critical to the passing of H.R. 40 in 2030. Artists from across the globe descend on Dream Labs to exchange ideas creative thinkers from every corner of each city. Movement-aligned leaders from around the world drop in to hear the latest news from community reporters. It was here where organizers first gathered to debate the possibility of switching the global paradigm of the success of a land from GDP (gross domestic product) to happiness indexes.
Their information-sharing systems, investigative reporting, and civic engagement programs have given people power over how governance works in their own communities. And the North Carolina location fit with immersive amusement park rides, just replaced Disney World as the happiest place on earth.
More Love More Life
Over the past few decades, the Dreamlabs’ ability to connect art, technology, media, community and journalism to movements like Landback, abolition, climate housing, and healthcare have played an important role in creating what we now just know as, the new normal. A world where the land is actually stewarded and cared for, prisons are becoming obsolete, and housing and healthcare are human rights.
Black journalists have long understood the power of journalism and storytelling, and they oftentimes paid the price for that knowledge. Dream Labs are simply a continuation of that legacy.
This new location in Hawai’i is sure to do the same and do it with its own specific flair. Here’s to 40 more years of joy, community, and art fueling liberation.