City Imaginarium: Bringing Urban Futures into Public Spaces?

What kind of cities do we want to live in – and how do we get there?

Launched on World Cities Day (31 October 2025), City Imaginarium went beyond a traditional awareness campaign, using art and storytelling to spark the imagination and open up new visions of greener, more inclusive, and more resilient urban futures. Across the region, it transformed public spaces, events, and schools into places where people could encounter, reflect on, and help shape the cities of tomorrow. 

At the heart of the campaign, UNDP invited 11 illustrators from nine countries across the region – from Kosovo* to Kyrgyzstan – to reimagine urban futures through four themes: circular cities, energy resilience, inclusive and livable cities, and digital urban futures.

Alongside this, the Voices from the Cities portrait series brought in another dimension – citizens sharing their hopes for the places they call home.

The campaign was a collaboration across several regional projects of UNDP’s Istanbul Regional Hub, including the City Experiment Fund, Mayors for Economic Growth, Greening the Future, and the Urban Resilience Project. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, the Government of Japan, the European Union, the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic, and others supported it.

From screens to streets

The campaign came to life most powerfully offline, through exhibitions and participatory events that brought the work directly into cities.

In Pristina, Kosovo, the full collection was displayed inside the Kurriz Tunnel – an everyday transit space transformed into an immersive digital exhibition. Large-scale projections reached thousands of residents passing through one of the city’s busiest arteries, embedding the campaign into daily routines rather than asking people to seek it out.

In Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan, the exhibition became part of an Urbathon, where designers, engineers, students, and residents came together to develop ideas for climate resilience and urban quality of life. Here, the artworks didn’t just inspire – they framed the conversation and grounded innovation in lived experience.

In Poti, Georgia, the campaign moved from imagination to co-creation. A mural developed with illustrator Gamez was painted together with students at a local school, turning the campaign into a hands-on experience and leaving a lasting physical mark on the city.

Finally, at the Istanbul Development Dialogues, the campaign entered a global policy space – engaging policymakers, private sector actors, and experts exploring pathways for sustainable development.

Digital reach, amplified across the region

A one-month digital rollout across UNDP Europe and Central Asia’s channels and 11 Country Offices extended the campaign’s visibility. In total, 157 visual assets were produced and shared, and the campaign reached over 130,000 people across regional, HQ, and country-level channels. Digital played an important role – but primarily as an amplifier of what was happening on the ground.

Looking Ahead

The City Imaginarium illustration collection remains available for use across UNDP offices, with ready-to-print exhibition materials designed to support new pop-ups, local activations and public displays.

This opens a pathway for the campaign to keep evolving – not as a one off moment, but as a living format that can be adapted and brought to new cities and contexts around the region.

*References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).