In the text below, Jenny Grettve, Head of Transformation at EIT Culture & Creativity, shares her insights from WAVES, which took place 11–13 September 2025 in Helsinki, Finland. 

Is there another way?  

This was the guiding question of the WAVES gathering a couple of weeks ago in Helsinki, Finland. Organised by Leapfrog Projects and Innrwrks, the event set out to explore how futures are shaped by those willing to move differently. Over several days, they brought together what they call “first movers” – people from across political and sectoral divides and all over the world – to wrestle with the complexities of shifting societal systems through shared inquiry and practical action. And wrestle we did. 

There are many ways to relate to our ongoing planetary metacrisis or, as researcher Vanessa Andreotti so beautifully reframed it, our metaconsequences. Together with her daughter, dedicated dance instructor Giovanna de Oliveira Andreotti, and award-winning filmmaker, writer, and educator Nora Bateson, the first day carried a deeply feminine presence that was both profoundly apparent and warmly honoured by the audience. All three women are important inspirations for ways of being and working with systems, complexity, and futures. In this space, and through the emotions the gathering evoked, another way felt not only possible but already emerging. 

Unlike many conferences, WAVES encouraged participants to step into tension rather than avoid it. From the outset it was clear: moving forward requires engaging with differences, not shying away from them. One tangible example came on the final day, when a workshop organiser was openly criticised by a participant. Through dialogue, they moved from tension to relationship, leaving irritation behind and arriving instead at a genuine connection. 

Leapfrog Projects also challenged traditional event design by resisting rigid outcome-driven structures. Participants co-created the flow, sharing, shaping dialogues, and moving ideas forward together. With voices from a broad range of backgrounds, the collective agency in the room created space for exploration. There were many parallel workshops on a wide range of themes, from regenerative economics to education and AI. Alongside the brilliant minds of coaches Samantha Sweetwater and Olivier Larvor, I co-led a workshop on reimagining ourselves and our cultures. Through curious questions, participants shared stories and personal reflections, reminding us once again that human connection is vital for any movement forward. 

Over the days, we returned again and again to humanity’s lost relationship with nature and how understanding and recovering a sense of kinship is fundamental. Vanessa Andreotti puts it simply: from modernity to relationality. If we fail to recognise our intricate role with all living things on this planet, we risk missing both our purpose and our meaning. Perhaps the most beautiful expression of this truth came from the youngest participant: a baby, who on the final day was handed the mic. Held by her mother, she filled the room with soft, calm sounds that moved many to tears. In that brief moment, without any distractions, she told the story of what life is really about. 

I left the conference feeling a little unstable, yet in a good way. Sometimes only by loosening the fixed frameworks that make us feel stuck can we discover new ways of being. Transformation can be unsettling: when the trustworthy perspectives you’ve held onto begin to shift, instability is inevitable. And maybe the “other way” that WAVES invited us to seek is not really a “way” at all. Maybe it is another now, a call to stay flexible and open, right here, in this moment. As Finland’s Minister of Education, Anders Adlercreutz, suggested during the closing discussion, it may be time to put art back at the centre of solutions for better futures.