In the Textures of Hope project, 16 of us came together to explore our experiences of hope through creative activities and conversation. At the end of the project, we decided to hold a “Hope Festival” in June 2026 to share some of our ideas with others in the local community. As part of that, we painted three murals together to highlight some key interconnected themes that emerged—three elements that together help to build and sustain hope.
The first is connection and community. Hope is nurtured through our relationships and in and through the various communities we are part of; we cannot experience it in isolation. We need other people to hope, and our hopes should also be for “we” not just for “me.”
The second theme is action and agency, and all sorts of different kinds of action from sharing food to protesting injustice are depicted here. While hope (understood as wishful, positive thinking) has got quite a bad name recently for encouraging passive apathy in the face of global polycrisis, we felt that action was an intrinsic element of hoping well, particularly acting together.
The third theme is being present in the natural world. For many of us, being still in nature was grounding and offered a sense of being held. In tough times, remembering the cyclical nature of life could reassure that things were always changing.
Revd Dr Susie Snyder
You can learn more about our research associate Revd Dr Susie Snyder’s research on ‘Hope’ by visiting its project page.