IWF PhD Project Celebrated for Innovative Community Futures Work
A project by IWF researcher and PhD candidate Stephanie Rosestone was highly commended at the 2026 Victorian Museums and Galleries Awards last week.
The Museum of Future Water is a collection of participatory Possitopian Futures about water. The project gathers speculative artworks from local communities imagining life 25 years into the future, inviting people to consider the many ways water may shape their lives, environments, and communities.
Conceived by Stephanie Rosestone as part of her PhD with the Institute for Water Futures at the Australian National University, the Museum explores how communities and decision makers engage with uncertain futures.
“In my research project, I’ve been interested in how decision makers and communities make sense of uncertain futures. I created The Museum of Future Water as a space for this work - a place where the public ideas, contradictions and emotions could be shared,” said Stephanie.
“Rather than seeking consensus, the Museum allowed complexity and plurality to surface. This recognition affirms the value of research that invites the public into speculative thinking, not to predict the future, but to better understand how we can collectively navigate uncertainty in the present and equitably influence which futures are made possible.”
The Museum of Future Water began as a physical exhibition at the Mooroopna Education and Activity Centre in Victoria as part of the 2025 Shepparton Arts Festival and has since continued to grow, featuring at a range of events across Victoria and South Australia.
“The Museum of Future Water has shown that communities are ready to engage with the difficult and uncertain futures that lie ahead, if we create the right kinds of spaces,” said Stephanie. “An exhibition built from publicly imagined futures is unusual, but it has proven to be a powerful way to surface complexity, collaborate across contestation and connect community insights back to decision makers.”
“With further support, this project can grow into a cross-sector platform that brings artists, researchers, communities and water managers together to explore and make decisions about the futures we must learn to navigate.”
