Regenerating urban histories and futures

Local Alternatives re-imagines urban histories and futures under conditions of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ubiquitous technologies. It offers a collaborative platform for co-produced research and engagement across international borders. Founded by artist and researcher David Rousell in 2017, Local Alternatives brings together children, young people, artists, designers, educators, curators, policymakers, and urban citizens from cities across the world.

Our creative projects are ongoing, open-ended, and led by children and young people's sensory investigations, concerns, and imaginings of their urban environments and communities. We are invested in developing more regenerative urban histories and futures through community-led responses to social and environmental challenges. We co-develop and co-produce this work to feed into exhibitions, public programs, curriculum development, publications, heritage projects, policy reports, and international networks.

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our projects

Making Histories
Naarm (Melbourne)

How can young people become makers of urban histories, and what are the implications for cultural and educational institutions?

Biocultural Realms
Naarm (Melbourne)

How can we find new ways to value biocultural actions and relationships with urban forests? What new literacies are needed to understand and participate in biocultural value systems?

Sensing Change
Naarm (Melbourne)

What is the role of art and design in channeling the forces of change toward more just and regenerative urban futures?

Forests as Sentient Societies
Naarm (Melbourne)

How can we cultivate intergenerational relationships of learning and care which recognise the sentient capacities of urban forests?

Memories of the Future
Manchester-> Berlin-> Stockholm

How can mobile cinematic technologies help us generate more open and pluralistic memories of the city, perhaps even memories of the future?

Urban Carbonscapes
Naarm (Melbourne)

How can we map the 'carbonscape' of a city, and envision low carbon dwelling places for human and non-human citizens alike?

NEW Futures
Naarm (Melbourne) -> Saigon

How can emerging technologies empower young people to navigate climate-responsive futures in education and work?

Sensing Rivers on Unceded Lands
Naarm (Melbourne)

How do we sense, connect, and learn with urban river ecologies on sovereign and unceded Aboriginal lands?

Haptic Cities
Montreal-> Edinburgh

What is the role of touch in building our connection with more-than-human urban environments and socialities?

Suspensions
London-> Manchester

How can techniques of improvisation create temporary 'suspensions' within the institutionally gridded spacetimes of the city?

Remixing the Museum
Manchester

How can immersive art and media practices remix the learning potentials of gallery and museum environments?

Inheriting the Anthropocene
Manchester

How is our sense of natural and cultural inheritance changing in times of climate change, extinction, and ubiquitous technology?

Cities of Strata
Manchester

How can creative experiments with strata help us sense the many layers of climate change impacting our cities?

Earth Image
Manchester

How do creative and scientific visualisations of climate data shift our images and imaginings of the Earth?

Mapping Timescapes
Manchester

How do we sense local environments through different scales, speeds, and durations of time?

Atmospheric Placemaking
Manchester

How do creative practices open up new possibilities for connection and belonging in urban parklands?

exhibitions and public programs

We are developing an ongoing series of public exhibitions and public programs based on work emerging from the Local Alternatives platform.

Our first exhibition, Superpositions, was held at Birley Art Gallery in Manchester in July, 2018.

Remixing Thick Time opened at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester in May, 2019.

Inheriting the Anthropocene opened July 18th, 2019 and ran through March 2020 at the Manchester Museum.

The Sensing Change exhibition opened on May 15th, 2022 at RMIT's Art in Public Gallery

Wild Hope: Conversations for a planetary commons ran from August 15-Sept 30 2023 at RMIT Design Hub Gallery

By the Birrarung opened at RMIT on December 5th, 2024

Counter-Histories of the City on Unceded Lands took place at the Immigration Museum in Naarm on December 10th, 2025

collaborators

David Rousell (Lead, Creative Agency Lab, RMIT)

Liz de Freitas (Manifold Lab, MMU; Adelphi University, NY)

Michael Gallagher (Manifold Lab, MMU)

Mark Peter Wright (resident artist, MMU)

Laura Trafi-Prats (Manifold Lab, MMU)

Riikka Hohti (University of Helsinki)

Maggie MacLure (Manifold Lab, MMU)

Dan Harris (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT)

Kelly Hussey-Smith (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT)

Kelly Chan (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT) Museums Victoria, Melbourne Museum

Anna Hickey-Moody (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT) MPavilion, M_Curators (Melbourne)

Jett Janetzki (M_Curators, Melbourne) CERES Community Environment Park

Mycelium Studios (Melbourne) Andrew Goodman (La Trobe University)

National Gallery of Victoria Michele Stockley (National Gallery of Victoria)

Catharine Cary (RCA, London) Andreia Penaloza Caicedo (Creative Agency, RMIT)

Aviva Endean (independent artist, ArtPlay) Justin Marshall (independent artist, ArtPlay)

Vanessa Chapple (Creative Agency, RMIT) Seth Brown (School of Education, RMIT)

Barking Spider Visual Theatre Company Robyn Cox (School of Education, RMIT)

Collingwood College (K-12 public school) Inner North Learning and Employment Network

Jessica Tran (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT) UNEVOC (UNESCO)

Local Alternatives has been funded through the Creative Agency Lab (RMIT), Design and Creative Practice Enabling Impact Platform (RMIT), the Victorian State Government, the Climate Change Research Network (RMIT), the Manifold Lab (MMU Strategic Opportunities Fund), a Research Accelerator Grant (Research and Knowledge Exchange, MMU), a Researcher Development Fellowship (MMU), Leverhulme Artist in Residence Grant, Säätiöiden Post Doc Pool (Finnish Foundation), and in-kind contributions from Z-arts, the Whitworth Art Gallery, City of Melbourne, ArtPlay, MPavilion, National Gallery of Victoria, Manchester Museum, and Museums Victoria.

We are also connecting the project internationally through partnerships and exchanges with ITU Copenhagen, Roskilde University, Andromeda Gallery, University of Barcelona, University of British Columbia, the Tapies Centre Barcelona, Cambridge University, UC Santa Cruz, and the SenseLab/3 Ecologies Institute at Concordia University.

Suzanne Smith (Z-arts)

Z-artists (age 5-15)

Whitworth Young Contemporaries (age 15-25)

Hannah-Lee Chalk (Manchester Museum)

Sally Thelwell (Whitworth Gallery)

Rabia Begum (Whitworth Young Contemporaries)

Jonas Fritsch (ITU, Copenhagen)

Kristine Samson (Roskilde University, Copenhagen)

Signal and ArtPlay (City of Melbourne)