Abstract

Through speculative world-building and character design, educators can empower students to explore social justice themes creatively and critically. This session shares a replicable workshop model that merges animation practice with critical pedagogy, using the fictional world of Aurona and Marava to engage with power, identity and environmental conflict. Participants will leave with practical methods to embed ethical, reflective storytelling into their own disciplines.

Session and activities

This workshop presents a creative pedagogy developed in a Changemaker Workshop, where students use world-building and character design to explore complex issues of justice, identity, and power. Grounded in critical theory and inspired by the original speculative zine Aurona & Marava, the session introduces a fictional universe shaped by colonial histories, ecological injustice, and intergenerational struggle.

Participants will produce a vignette of a character as a response to the Aurona and Marava world to reflect on personal and systemic narratives. Foucault’s Knowledge and Power will be touched upon to help participants understand structural inequalities.
The group will explore how speculative fiction can be used to safely unpack real-world tensions, offering space to question inherited worldviews and propose new ones. Activities will include guided drawing, collaborative narrative creation, and reflective discussion.

This session is suitable for educators, practitioners, and students across creative disciplines who are interested in socially-engaged pedagogy. Participants will leave with workshop resources, a copy of the zine, and a framework for adapting the methodology to their own teaching or practice. It offers a creative, inclusive model for embedding ethical inquiry and social justice into arts education through the power of animation and fiction.