A Few Years After Jubilee is a speculative project set in a future Europe, a few years after “Jubilee” – a landmark event that wiped out debt, reset the calendar, and reshaped social and economic priorities. Listeners tune into Populace, a radio show on the fictional European Broadcasting Network, to hear everyday stories, opportunities, and challenges in this time of transition.
Alongside the show, a physical planner is offered as a giveaway. It visualises the newly structured year, months, and weeks, and the ideas that inspired them.
A new calendar for a new social contract
At the heart of this future lies a new calendar that acts both as framework and metaphor. It shows how language can question what once seemed unchangeable.
- The timeline shifts from AD to AJ – After Jubilee.
- Months move away from the Gregorian calendar and are renamed to reflect new priorities and closer ties to the environment, such as Harvest.
- Each week has 10 days, split equally between rest and work, known as otium and negotium.
This restructuring mirrors, and encourages, changing lifestyles and values. Through the radio show, listeners experience how these shifts shape daily life.
Populace: stories from a slower, shared future
Populace brings this world to life through a series of intimate radio segments. Listeners hear:
- Tea with Nana – Doireann, 15, interviews her grandmother Saoirlaith about living through the transition. Saoirlaith describes reconnecting with neighbours, finding it easier to retire, and having time to share intergenerational wisdom with her granddaughter.
- Partners in Time – Lydia, a lawyer‑turned‑carpenter, recounts her love story with Ed, who also changed careers after Jubilee. They now alternate shifts so that Lydia can enjoy her otium days.
- Biphasic Therapy – A couple in counselling navigates the strain of change. Yohan adapts his sleep to seasonal rhythms, while Maria struggles with inconsistency. Their therapist, Yael, speaks about the need for patience and adaptability in periods of transition.
- Community Crafting and The Kitchen Garden – Community reporters take listeners into kitchen gardens and a church‑turned‑community centre. People grow food and leisure gardens together, retirees quilt, boys carve wood, and free workshops run through a gift‑based economy.
Across these stories, listeners are invited to imagine a world with more space to rest, to experiment, and to connect.
Learning from forgotten practices
Although set in the future, A Few Years After Jubilee is deeply rooted in history. The project asks how marginalised, forgotten or erased practices can inspire tomorrow.
An earlier research phase invited guest researchers to explore alternative methods, rituals and words for governance, collective decision‑making and sustainable livelihoods that have faded from mainstream imagination. Particular attention was paid to the language, narratives and metaphors that once supported these practices.
This fed directly into the design of the future world, for example:
- Reviving the Latin word “otium” – fertile boredom – to imagine how free time can once again be used for reflection, creativity and connection.
- Re‑imagining “kitchen gardens” as shared spaces for growing food and relationships.
- Proposing alternative ways of structuring days and weeks so they are better aligned with local environments and human rhythms.
Rather than romanticising the past, A Few Years After Jubilee uses it as a lens to re‑imagine futurism. It invites audiences to question their relationship to history, the linearity of time, and the supposed inevitability of the future.