Exploring the future for arts and culture organisations through scenarios and vignettes

• Scenarios are presented for the future of arts, culture and creativity.
• Vignettes (creative fictional prototypes) are used to explore the future in each scenario.
• Vignettes provide participants with an imagined material state to understand possible changes in future markets, business models and practices.

Drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives – innovation, design and strategy – the paper presents the case of an organisation engaging in futures processes to explore potential changes in arts, culture and creativity. Through research and participatory processes, scenarios were developed on the future of arts, culture and creativity in Wales. The scenarios were distilled into vignettes, forms of creative fictional prototypes to explore the possible environment for arts consumers, producers and distributors. The vignettes – visionary but without normative preferences – enabled creative discussions around supporting current and future artistic and cultural practices, emulating the function of probes in product innovation.