Timelines, deadlines and lifelines
Timelines, deadlines and lifelines is a workshop that explores some of the habits we have of thinking with time that are inherited and powerful. The activities explore how these habits shape how we think about the possibility of change.
The original meaning of a deadline is connected to peril: if you move beyond the line, you will be shot. Today, it is part of our day-to-day language. In work and life, it sets a marker that is often perceived as fixed and inflexible. Deadlines are often imposed, which can also mean consequences for everyone are not fully considered or taken account of.
The Timelines, deadlines and lifelines workshop was first delivered as a pilot in 2024 as part of Getting the timing right, a two-day event for people working towards sustainability and justice. The event was delivered in collaboration with Michel Alhadeff-Jones through the BA programme The Times of a Just Transition.
Types of deadlines
The Timelines, deadlines and lifelines workshop uses a set of bespoke illustrations that act as prompts for people to explore how deadlines operate in different situations and to see challenges we are facing differently.
Inspired by people’s responses to the illustrations, and to the questions they help raise about people’s experiences of deadlines, we have made Types of deadlines, a poster displaying 15 different illustrations.
A limited edition has been printed by hand on a Heidelberg Windmill printing press at The Department of Small Works in Bristol. The prints are available to order from their online shop. Profits from the sale will be used to continue this work and make future resources available.
Ask us about time tools and resources
Use the form below to ask a question, enquire about workshops or share a comment about our time tools and resources.
Created by Keri Facer and Harriet Hand, Timelines, deadlines and lifelines is part of range of tools and resources are being developed to support the temporal imagination.
Supported by University of Bristol and the British Academy.
About the project
Timelines, deadlines and lifelines has been produced as part of the British Academy programme The Times of a Just Transition.
This programme brings together scholars from six continents and 14 disciplines to transform our understanding of the role of time and timing in producing justice and injustice in sustainability transitions.
Working in highly diverse local sustainability struggles relating to land, cities, identities and the imagination - we explore how temporal frames and narratives are being (mis)used to define climate problems and solutions, how timing mechanisms prioritise, coordinate and exclude different actors and ways of life, how different rhythms of life are being aligned or alienated, and how uses of time as a form of invisible power are structuring the possibilities for justice for communities in the Global South and marginalised North.
Increased awareness and understanding of these timing mechanisms will expand our political and civic capacities to detect sources of misalignment and miscommunication, lay new foundations for dialogue across difference, and open-up the possibility of a pluriversal politics.
