The Conference takes a pause...

From digitalisation-everything and internet of things, to the Arab spring, to cyborgism and interrogations of what’s “real” in an era of fake news and misinformation—to disentangling the contemporary, converging crises shaping us and the systems we inhabit and depend on (climate, cities, the human body, democracy)...these are just a few of the conversations The Conference has taken up since 2011.

Organised by the Malmö-based, community-owned futures platform Media Evolution, The Conference has been an annual gathering for learning and getting inspired about doing business better. It’s also been a place for human connection: folks have made life-long friends, started business projects (and quit some!), met their soul mates and proposed to their partners on-stage, discovered the bliss of Nordic baths at Kallis, and gleefully debated some of our thickest topics deep into the night at a candlelit community table.

14 years later, we’re powering down for a reset. 

And we’re asking questions: How do we want to gather in professional contexts? What makes sense to learn, once a year, in community? What do we leave behind, before we get back to work? And, how do we span the widths and breadths of a vividly diverse city to imagine futures, inclusively?  How do we build agency and confidence and capacity across scales and sectors, to shape the futures we want to see? How do we not only envision—but enact—desirable futures with and for more of us?

We’ll reflect on all of this and more—on what we’ve accomplished, what we could do better, and what we can build anew, together, for more preferable futures—in Malmö and abroad.

Inspired by multiple previous presenters’ invitations to build many-to-many learning opportunities, we’ll be creating futures prototypes of what The Conference could be over the next months. At Media Evolution, we’ll be testing new formats in our regular open programming, listening into conversations with our local and global community, and digging deep into the Future Festivals Field Guide. 

We’ll be learning with all our senses, across scales, participating in gatherings we admire (hej Future Days, Southern Sweden Design Days, The Drop, Malmö Garden Show, and Blackbox CPH to name a few), and leaning into Malmo’s vibrant third places scene. 

Know someone we should be learning from, or want to tell us what the futures of The Conference could be? Email us or DM us on our social channels. And subscribe to the Media Evolution newsletter for updates. We’ll look forward to sharing what we find out in 2026. 

Until then, take care.

Warmly,

Martin Thörnkvist, Cecilia Frankel, Hildreth England  - Curators of The Conference 2011-2024

and everybody at Media Evolution.