IT’S 2100. WELCOME TO THE SYMBIOCENE.

What if the future isn’t something that happens to us, but something we design together?

Aligned with this year’s design week theme, Design the World You Want, the event invites you to do something radical: step into the year 2100 and inhabit a future that worked out.

We live in a moment defined by overlapping disruptions known as the polycrisis: climate change, biodiversity loss, economic instability, conflict, and social fracture. It can be hard to imagine a way through. But imagination is precisely where transformation begins.

The Symbiocene is a concept first proposed by Australian eco-philosopher Dr. Glenn Albrecht in 2016. It offers a compelling vision of what lies beyond the Anthropocene. Where the Anthropocene has been defined by human dominance and the extraction and degradation of natural systems, the Symbiocene is its antithesis: an era in which human culture, technology, and economy are shaped by, and in service of, the interconnected web of life on Earth. A time, as Albrecht describes it, when life works with life to further life, so that all can thrive.

Unfolding across three 1-hour panels from 10am to 1pm, speakers will reflect on the key pillars of Culture, Technology, and Economy, the day opens a space to ask: what choices and values got us into the symbiocene by 2100, and what can we bring back to the decisions we are making right now in 2026?

Presented in collaboration with Futures Partner, RMIT University.

Speakers
Alison Page – Award-winning First Nations artist and designer
Andrew Simpson – Founder and Director, Vert Design
Dhiren Das – Director Relative Systems
Elliat Rich – Designer based in Mparntwe (Alice Springs)
Erin O’Donnell – Associate Professor, Melbourne Law School, and Deputy Chair, Birrarung Council
Glenn A. Albrecht – Environmental philosopher, author Earth Emotions (2019) and The Symbiocene: Our Only Future (2027)
Katherine Trebeck – Program Director, The Next Economy
Ronnie Scott – Associate Professor, novelist, comics scholar, and co-director of RMIT’s non/fictionLab

Hosts
Naomi Stead – Associate Deputy Vice Chancellor, Engagement, RMIT University
Andy Marks – Executive Director, The Symbiocene Institute
Ewan McEoin – Senior Curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture, National Gallery of Victoria

Please note your ticket to It’s 2100. Welcome to the Symbiocene does not include entry to In Conversation with David Holmgren.

After attending It’s 2100. Welcome to the Symbiocene, join Australian environmental designer David Holmgren in his exploration of the Symbiocene.

Purchase tickets to both It’s 2100. Welcome to the Symbiocene and In Conversation with David Holmgren to receive a 10% discount.

Learn more about In Conversation with David Holmgren