What SXSW London taught us about the future of place
In June 2025, SXSW landed in London for the very first time. A festival known for blending tech, music, film, and creative industries, its arrival on this side of the Atlantic brought a much-needed jolt of energy to the UK’s cultural landscape.
At Concept Culture, we’ve always championed the spaces where disciplines—and people—collide. So I went to SXSW London not just to attend talks or explore immersive installations, but to listen. To observe. To sense what was bubbling just below the surface.
Attending the inaugural SXSW London was a cultural jolt — a heady mix of live music, AI showcases, futurist provocations, and storytelling that cuts through noise. As Founder of Concept Culture and host of the Talking Place podcast, I arrived with curiosity and left with clarity: the creative industries are changing rapidly, and with them, our relationship to place, power, and purpose.
Here are a couple of provocations from global icons that left a lasting impression on me.
“We Can’t Lose Hope”
Dr. Jane Goodall on Ecology, Empathy, and the Future
“If we lose hope, we become apathetic. We are stealing the future of our young people."
Dr. Jane Goodall's keynote was a powerful reminder that visionary thinking begins with connection. At 91, her words were not nostalgic but sharp, rooted in ecological urgency and human empathy. From her early struggles to gain credibility as a young female scientist, to launching youth-led conservation movements like Roots & Shoots across 21 institutes globally, Goodall spoke with humility and humour.
As a UN Messenger for Peace, Jane’s message was clear:
“Every day you live, you make some impact on the planet You have a choice to make on what that impact is going to be We can't leave everything to the government or big business We must realise that we, as individuals, can make a difference We can influence the people around us. Do your bit to make the world a better place for future generations.”
At Concept Culture, we believe that shaping better places starts with shaping better values - values rooted in local knowledge and ecological interdependence.
“Your Imagination is Expensive”
Idris Elba on the Power of Creative Capital
“Your imagination is expensive. When you create something and share it, you use your imagination. That imagination becomes capital. That capital becomes change.”
When Actor Idris Elba declared that your imagination is a form of capital, he reframed creativity as a scalable economic force. His vision to build an ‘African Odeon’ to amplify African storytelling felt like a bold infrastructure-level idea to decentralise cultural production. He introduced the idea of a ‘creator wallet’ — giving creators agency to fund and distribute their own work.
"Are we enabling creators to own their IP, their space, and their future?"
For placemakers and brand strategists, this is a call to examine our role in enabling or obstructing creative ownership. Are we designing cities and spaces that allow imagination to scale? Or are we stuck in extractive models that marginalise the very voices that make culture vibrant?
This isn’t just about cultural programming — it’s about cultural equity.
“AI is an extension of your mind”
Björn Ulvaeus on AI as Creative Extension
"Writing with a machine is quicker. It does exactly what you tell it. It’s an extension of your mind."
Björn Ulvaeus, founding member of ABBA, offered a pragmatic take on AI. He positioned it as a creative collaborator that, while fast, is only as good as the human culture it’s trained on. He cautioned that AI often produces generic results unless grounded in rich, diverse input.
"There is a common misconception that AI can write songs. It is lousy at it”
He doesn’t see AI as replacing human creativity — but as augmenting it, speeding it up, and offering unexpected inspiration. "These models wouldn't exist without the songs we wrote." This raises crucial questions about data equity, authorship, and what creative inputs we're feeding into future systems.
“We Are the Algorithm”
Sam Ryder and Mike Soutar on Digital Authenticity
"You begin by screaming into the void... and the void starts screaming back."
- Sam Ryder
Singer and Eurovision star Sam Ryder shared a moving reflection on creating from a place of joy, not metrics. His rise through TikTok was not engineered but evolved through honest expression.
Business Leader Mike Soutar added: "The UK is brave at taking creative risks. Our low ego means we’re OK to get it wrong." That humility — that willingness to experiment — is exactly what makes the creative and cultural sector in the UK so special. But it also requires safe spaces to fail. Digital platforms offer reach, but physical spaces offer resonance. And that’s where placemaking comes in. We need spaces that allow creators to test, play, and grow without fear of failure.
"Authenticity is not a trend. It’s a survival strategy."
- Sam Ryder
Together, they reminded us that genuine connection still matters. And that creators, not platforms, decide what resonates. Sam’s call to arms is for the creative industry to become a level playing field, not one where you pay to play. We need to maintain the spaces where art and culture are born. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that every person has a shot at becoming an artist. Imagine missing out on an artist's work simply because they have no space to create or perform.
“The AI will never be smarter than the human.”
Wyclef Jean on cultural currency and creative soul
"The power of the creator comes from your soul. And a machine learning tool is an extension of that creativity."
Wyclef Jean reminded us that authenticity and ownership must go hand-in-hand. He warned against platforms that exploit rather than empower: "Don’t compromise your roots. We want to work with platforms that treat us as partners, not as artists to exploit."
For those working in culture and place, this is a call to embed equity and partnership at every level. Are we building creative ecosystems that respect roots? Or are we building platforms that extract value and move on? It was a sharp reminder that cultural equity must be designed into the infrastructure, not added as decoration.
"You can’t fool Wikipedians."
Jimmy Wales on Trust, Bias & Community Moderation
"ChatGPT makes things up. They look plausible. And fact-checkers have bias."
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, stressed that vigilance and diversity are the backbone of trusted information ecosystems. Bias in AI-generated content is to be expected because humans themselves are biased.
As placemakers, we must ask: Who's writing our narratives? And who is fact-checking our legacy? Who’s editing the Wikipedia pages of our cities, our neighbourhoods, our culture?
If we want balanced, inclusive stories, we need to diversify the people shaping them online and on the ground. Across keynote stages and intimate salons, voices from science, music, tech, and policy shared overlapping themes. What became clear is that the creative economy, now more than ever, is about cultural stewardship.
This goes beyond output and branding — it's about ethics, ecosystems, and imagination.
So, whether we’re preserving roots, moderating community truths, or resurrecting extinct species, the message is clear: The future isn’t waiting to be discovered — it’s waiting to be created. We’re entering a new era of place—one that is emotional, digital, intersectional, and deeply human.
Here are five key takeaways from SXSW that are shaping how we think about place:
1. Place is No Longer Just Physical - It’s Emotional and Immersive
One of the most powerful experiences I had was walking through an AI-generated sound installation based on local memory and street data. It wasn’t just “smart”—it was sensory, evocative, and strangely intimate. The physical built environment is only one layer of place. Increasingly, we’re designing for emotion, memory, and interaction—often through digital and immersive tools. At Concept Culture, we believe this shift opens up new ways to tell stories of place—not just through signage or branding, but through atmosphere, tone, and experience.
2. Culture is core Civic Infrastructure
SXSW London echoed something we’ve long advocated for: Culture is not an afterthought. It’s essential. From grassroots festivals to community food projects and hyperlocal media, culture is the connective tissue that binds people to places. A standout panel titled Radical Imagination and Civic Futures made a compelling case for embedding artists and cultural producers into city-making. Not just as commentators, but as co-creators. We’re seeing this happen in our own projects—from co-designing with local creatives to integrating cultural identity into masterplans. The cities that thrive are the ones that centre culture, not sideline it.
3. Technology Should Care, Not Just Scale
While the tech on display at SXSW was impressive, the innovations that stood out were those that felt human. Whether it was AI tools translating oral histories into visual art or sensors designed to measure joy in public spaces, the emphasis was on technology that listens, that feels, that adapts. This aligns with our view that digital tools should serve communities, not just efficiencies. The future of city making lies in co-creating with communities, using digital tools to amplify local voices, not overwrite them. The goal isn’t a ‘smart city’, it’s a sensitive city.
4. Intersectionality breeds Innovation
The most dynamic conversations at SXSW happened at the intersections between disciplines, between identities, and across lived experiences. Inclusive design sessions that brought together neurodivergent thinkers, artists, technologists and urbanists showed what’s possible when we embrace complexity. For placemaking to be meaningful, we must design with, not just for. That means bringing multiple perspectives into the process from the outset—not as an afterthought, but as a foundation.
5. Storytelling is your most powerful tool
In an age of dashboards, data, and AI-generated everything, one thing remains clear: Stories still cut through the noise. At SXSW, whether it was a panel on rebranding a neighbourhood or a performance on community memory, the projects that resonated most were those grounded in narrative. At Concept Culture, we create place narratives that are co-authored with communities—rooted in history, reflective of present needs, and expansive enough to hold future hopes. Because at the end of the day, a place isn’t just somewhere you go; it’s something you feel.
Final Thoughts
SXSW London reminded us that place is not a product—it’s a process. A living, evolving, and often messy collaboration between people, culture, space and story. For those of us working in urban development, cultural strategy or creative engagement, the challenge now is to slow down, listen more, and design for connection - not just for impact.
At Concept Culture, we’re excited to keep building places that are not just seen or visited - but felt, remembered and loved. Our work in place branding and identity is built on that ethos. We help brands and communities tell stories that honour the past, resonate in the present, and remain adaptable for the future. Because in the end, creativity isn't just something we do. It’s how we live, how we connect, and how we leave things better than we found them. The future belongs to those who are willing to be bold, open, and unfinished.
If you were at SXSW London and want to compare notes, get in touch - we’re always up for a conversation.
📩 Want to explore how we can bring culture and storytelling into your place strategy? Get in touch with our team: hello@conceptculture.co
🎧 Listen to Tanisha’s SXSW London reflections on the Talking Place podcast