Watch our Slideshow - What’s This All About Then?
Think Act Vote (?!X) is radical think tank that brings together culture, creativity, digital, sustainability and citizenship. A space online and offline where how you dream the world and how you see it come together. A place where all of us can share inspiration and be inspired.
Don’t let our name fool you. We are not trying to get you to cast your votes in the ballot box, although we do think that’s important. Politics is meant to be the way in which our country serves us by acting in our best interest. However many of us feel disillusioned with our politicians, political parties and our democratic systems. Governments can leave us feeling neglected, powerless and helpless to create the change that we need ourselves. Yet politics isn’t just something that happens in the houses of parliament and voting doesn’t just happen every four years. We express the future that we choose through how we spend our money, time and energy. Every day we make choices that shape our world.
The word is changing in a way that makes many of us feel anxious about the future with issues like climate change and global economics. Think Act Vote is built to inspire us to think positively about our future and the votes we cast, today, tomorrow and forever.
We chose the word vote because we think it is time that we no longer think of our vote as something that we give to politicians at elections, but instead as our power and our voice that we hold every day. We believe that by bringing you all together to share the future that you choose, we can remind ourselves that we can go someway to creating it. It’s a new kind of think tank, where everyone’s opinion counts.
We’d love you to get involved and join in the conversation.
“Think Act Vote – Making Politics Fashionable” – Marie Claire Magazine
Illustration by Holly Berry
How did ?!X Come about?
Think Act Vote was started in the run up to the 2010 British General Election. Founder Amisha Ghadiali, whose background is in ethical fashion and jewellery design, was frustrated by how negative political campaigning gets, and tired at the idea of having to endure five months of it, time we wouldn’t be thinking about what really matters – our dreams for the future. So through conversations with friends whose backgrounds were in sustainability, politics, drama and design, the idea of ?!X was born. What brought us together was a shared disappointment about the depressing view of politics and personal agency held by so many people in the UK today and an ambition to do something about it – creating a community around our relationship with the political, social, economic and environmental choices we make for our future.
We are putting together a book that we plan to give to the British Prime Minister and other political figures to remind them of what really matters to us. The book will be a mixture of your contributions and photographs from the ?!X Photobooth. We are planning to take the idea global now, and creating a space where people from all over the world can share the future that they choose and ways to create it.
As we set upon deciding the question, What’s the future you choose? We thought it would be one that people felt embarrassed to answer. In fact the opposite has been the case, we have been shocked by how much people have been excited about what we are doing and keen to take part. More and more people are getting involved in our photobooths, or contributing to our book, and we have had successful media coverage including publications like Dazed & Confused and Marie Claire. The whole project has come together voluntarily, with people giving time, and services to help us spread the word. We are now applying for funding and looking for formal sponsorship to get the book published, build the new website, and launch our event series, we can’t wait to share these with you.
“Think, Act, Vote is the perfect antidote to the mixture of chaos, violence and authoritarianism that is causing so much despair in our global village. ?!X is a creative, exciting and inspiring call to action, and whatever age you are, you have something to bring to the party. Join it.” Lord John Alderdice
A very inspiring project about the complex worlds of both fashion and politics.
Fantastic project. Very interested in being involved in connecting young people to politics.
Have written about it here: http://laurenivory.wordpress.com/
Lets talk!
Just got papped by your guys this lunchtime – sounds a really interesting idea, looking forward to reading more about it!
is the world not saturated with logos? i think your initial phase of changing designs makes the most sense. make it something fluid that people can appropriate, adapt and keep fresh.
think act vote
tit thank voice