The art of hoping

We asked artists to share art that reflects on hope, what it means, what it makes us feel.

Art that can inspire hope in return, helping individuals, institutions and communities cultivate the imagination, capability and collective agency needed for regenerative and hopeful futures.

Welcome to our online gallery. Take a moment in your busy day to scroll through the pieces and recharge with a dose of hope.

This project is linked to ‘No Limits to Hope’, which explores how learning can become a driving force for cultural and systemic renewal, helping individuals, institutions and communities cultivate the imagination, capability and collective agency needed for regenerative and hopeful futures.

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The passion of young people
The Last Match Poem

The stadium was still. The scoreboard read three-two. Our team was losing, and there were only minutes left to play.

Rain was torrent, soaking our jerseys and filling our shoes with mud. The crowd had gone quiet, and even our loudest supporters had stopped shouting.

Our captain was sidelined, and our best player rotting on the bench. We were tired, frustrated, and starting to believe that the match was already over.

Our coach kept shouting from the side, “Come on! Keep going! Don’t stop!”

I glanced over at my teammates. No one made a sound.

Then I remembered something captain told us before the game:

“Believe in yourself, even when hope seems far away.”

The whistle blew.

We started running again.

My legs felt heavy, but I kept moving. I passed the ball to Arjun. He passed it back to me.

For a moment, everything seemed to slow to perfection.

The goal was right there…

I kicked the ball with everything I had.

It flew through the rain, past the goalkeeper, and into the net.

Three-three.

For a second, nobody moved.

Then the stadium exploded with noise.

My teammates ran towards me, shouting and laughing. We drew the match, but that didn't matter anymore.

What mattered was that we had refused to give up.…
Where Freedom Takes Flight
PRISONERS OF HOPE

PRISONERS OF HOPE

Usually, hope would whisper gently in my ears, and I would pretend to be deaf.

She would wave her tiny hands in my face, smiling widely, and I would pretend to be blind.

He would talk about his big dreams, and I would feign indifference.

Perhaps, I have spent too much time looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, and now I have accepted the cold, dark loneliness of the tunnel.

Maybe, where others see a bright future, all I see is a dark present.

What use is hope?

People are dying, the planet is crumbling. What shall I use hope to do?

Does hope only work in an anticipated future?

I sit with a pen in my hand, and a notebook in front of me. Eureka!!!!!

I think I figured it out! I know!!

I know what hope is!! I know who it is!!

Hope is the woman that goes to work everyday, and comes back to her family, tired and exhausted, but ready to pour love into her home.

Hope is the man that strives to cater for his family, amidst the chaos that is life.

Hope is the elderly woman that sets up a stall by the roadside everyday to make ends meet.

Hope is the little girl and boy that hawk their goods in the Lagos traffic, never wavering in a system that is against them.…
Another Side to This Thing

A Changed Route Is Not a Cancelled Destination
A goddamn bee

A goddamn bee

I lined my balc’ny with flowers,

hoping to see

a goddamn bee

Friends trekked from across the city,

they must have thought

they were for them

I read the paper this morning,

hoping to see

a goddamn bee

The Min’ster of Defense, page one,

a suit and tie:

“a war takes time”

I went off to work regardless

hoping to see

a goddamn bee

I walked through the trees, gazing up

at canopies

in awe

‘Copter crossing,

buzzing over trees

the Min’ster in sight,

but not a bee

My winter coat,

wrapped up in pollen

Spring had sent for me

I brushed it off

but what a fool,

what a fool I can be

Had I kept it there,

I could have seen

a goddamn bee
Amal (أمل)
Another Side to This Thing
Binocular Vision
Blooming Together
Break the Circle
Can we lose hope?
Cardiac Conversion
Ceaseless Bloom
Ecstatic Wave
Flight of Hope
Guide me to the light
Held by Grace
Hope
Hope
Hope
Hope for the Small
Hope Has Two Daughters

Hope Has Two Daughters

Hope has two daughters. The first refuses the world as it is, fumed in rage. The second asks what that refusal requires of us, collectively.

I know the first daughter well. These days, she is never difficult to find. Open your news feed. Pick up your phone. Look out the window. Sometimes just open your eyes. She has seen the math: who gets counted, who becomes collateral, whose grief receives a flag, whose body becomes uncomfortable scenery we scroll online and pass on the morning walk to work. She knows what we have learned to walk around, tiptoe gently past, hesitant to sound too political. Why is this child deserving and not that one? Why this border? Why does one death stop everything while another becomes a number we scroll past? Who decided? When did we agree? When did safety and atrocity become synonyms? Who allowed that economically? Socially?…
Hope in times of crisis: meet me in the garden
Hope is a living thread

Perhaps this is the art of hoping:

To understand that I am not the source of hope. To remember that hope is not something I individually cultivate. Hope is some form of energy we inherit, carry, tend to, and pass forward.

I am a vessel for it. We are a vessel for it.

A living thread in a much older structure.

Someone before me had carried something of hope forward without knowing my name.

Someone before me endured.

Someone prayed, someone sang songs, someone danced

Someone planted.

Someone crossed a threshold.

Someone hoped and imagined a life they would never see.

And somehow, their imagining, their hope reached me, reached us.

I began to wonder

What hope did my ancestors carry when they could not yet see me?

What prayers were folded into their choices?

What courage traveled from heart to heart

generation to generation, until it arrived for us.

What will I leave behind for someone whose name I may never know?

Now, hope feels like relationship and collective care.

Relational threads streaming backward and forward.

A living thread within a much older weaving.

I am now one pair of hands holding the threads for a little while. Holding the responsibility for the hope we inherit.…
Hope: The Path of Intention
Human Design
human, at last
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