By Mikkel Snorre Wilms Boysen and Pernille Welent Sørensen
In spring 2026, a special issue of the journal Arts and Humanities in Higher Education was published under the title Playing with Futures: Imagining and Designing Utopias in Higher Education.
The special issue draws on GRASP’s research track and brings together Danish and international contributions exploring how students in higher education can imagine alternative futures, and how playful and creative processes can engage them in society and in creating change.
The articles reflect the research visions and ambitions embedded within GRASP. For that reason, it is worth dwelling on the processes that made the publication possible. These processes are shaped by a number of more or less articulated principles that form the core of GRASP’s approach to research and research dissemination, influencing both the kind of research that is developed and the ways in which it comes into being.
According to these principles, GRASP seeks to promote:
- research as an equal and inclusive activity that takes place in communities where everyone is welcome
- research as a sensory, embodied, aesthetic and artistic practice
- research as both an international and locally rooted activity
- research that contributes hope, care and solutions to societal challenges
These same principles are reflected in the annual GRASP open call. Here, researchers, students, artists and practitioners are invited to contribute knowledge that addresses societal challenges and points towards possible solutions and utopias. The call contains several tracks and is developed by Roskilde University and University College Absalon. This article tells the story of Absalon’s track and how it led to an international publication on utopias.
As part of working with these principles, we developed the format Knowledge Dinner (Vidensmiddag). As a guest, you enter a beautifully decorated room with tables covered in white tablecloths, flowers, crystal glasses, candles and carafes. Two hosts, dressed in their finest attire, warmly guide you to a seat at one of the tables. You may also choose to sit in the play corner, and if there is no room left, you might squeeze in or stand behind another dinner guest at one of the tables.
A bell rings, and the hosts welcome everyone and introduce the programme, which consists of communal singing, keynote speakers and a three-course menu. But the courses are not food. Instead, they are short contributions where researchers, artists and practitioners share knowledge and invite guests into creative and sensory activities at the tables. The keynote presentations may take the form of talks, poetry, dance, film, music or visual imagery.
From the very beginning, the hosts ask all guests to think of an invisible companion attending the dinner. It could be a child, a citizen, a young person, an elderly person, a playground or a tree — all the human and more-than-human beings that the research concerns, but who cannot be physically present. They are present in spirit and in thought. Some guests have also brought artefacts symbolising their invisible companion: a photograph, a pair of rubber boots. At the end of the dinner, everyone is asked to reflect on what their invisible companion gained from participating in the evening.
The Knowledge Dinner is both a symbol and a format that promotes what we want research to be. It represents community, care, attentiveness, dialogue and friendship. It opens up sensory and aesthetic forms of knowledge, while creating a space where many different voices can be heard — always keeping in mind who the research is ultimately for.
Within Absalon’s research environment Movement, Creativity and Aesthetics in Pedagogical Practice, we have maintained a close relationship with GRASP for several years. Researchers from our environment have helped shape GRASP from the very beginning, and the platform has created space for thinking ambitiously and visionarily about how research, pedagogy and art can engage with societal challenges.
At the same time, the relationship is also concrete and local. Absalon has a campus in Roskilde, which creates a natural connection to the GRASP festival. Over the years, GRASP has therefore come to play a special role within the research environment. Each year, we gather around creative research dissemination and idea development, inviting both national and international networks. In this way, GRASP has become our local home conference with an international outlook.
Through GRASP, we have for several years invited researchers, practitioners and artists to explore hopeful perspectives — utopias in everyday life within Danish welfare institutions — as part of the annual GRASP open call. The ambition has been to create space for imagining alternatives within daycare institutions, schools, healthcare systems and nursing homes, among others, while drawing attention to the people and professionals who, through creativity and agency, create solutions and joy in everyday life.
This work forms the foundation of the special issue in Arts and Humanities in Higher Education.
As a university college educating future welfare professionals — including teachers, pedagogues and nurses — Absalon has a particular focus on how students can engage with societal challenges. The special issue specifically explores how playful and creative approaches can strengthen students’ ability to imagine new possibilities and contribute to change.
The work has been developed in collaboration with both national and international networks, particularly Playful Learning, which works to create playful, creative and visionary learning environments. The Knowledge Dinner has also been used within the context of Playful Learning.
