Sky Ladders and Soul Dreams: What Happens When We Dare to Imagine a Better World

Rediscovering the Power of Imagination in a Time of Urgency

In 2015, after more than two decades of failed attempts, Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang finally lit his “Sky Ladder” — a 1,650-foot flaming staircase suspended in the air by a helium balloon. The firework spectacle, which blazed through the pre-dawn sky of his hometown, wasn’t just another artistic achievement. It was a deeply personal farewell — created for one person: his 100-year-old grandmother, who was too frail to attend in person but watched the entire display on FaceTime. She passed away a month later.

This wasn’t just a final tribute — it was a moment of culmination. Of persistence. Of imagination finally realized.

And in that moment, the world was reminded: our minds can create whatever we commit to — if we dare to remember the possibilities.

The Imagination Gap: A Crisis of Vision in the Face of Global Challenges

We often think of the world's problems as too big, too complex, too entrenched. Climate breakdown. Biodiversity collapse. Inequality. These aren't small challenges — but neither were rockets to the moon or ladders to the sky.

The issue is not just a lack of technology or funding. It's a crisis of imagination.

We have been taught to solve problems incrementally, to think within systems built for another era. But in a world that demands transformation — not just transition — it is our imagination that must lead.

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted in 2015, lay out a blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet. But to bring these goals to life, we need more than policy. We need the capacity to reimagine how we live, create, govern, and relate — from the ground up.

We need sky ladders of our own.

Art as Blueprint, Fire as Catalyst

Cai Guo-Qiang is known worldwide for his groundbreaking use of gunpowder and large-scale explosion events that blend sculpture, painting, and performance. From the fireworks at the 2008 Beijing Olympics to his ephemeral “explosion drawings,” his art explores the tension between destruction and creation — between what is and what could be.

In many ways, his work is a metaphor for the global moment we find ourselves in. Faced with environmental destruction and social fragmentation, we have a choice: collapse into chaos, or channel the fire toward regeneration.

When we allow ourselves to dream, to imagine beyond the limits of today’s broken systems, something shifts. Art reminds us that transformation is not only possible — it’s essential. It invites us to build emotional connection, to see the unseen, to remember what matters.

And perhaps, like Cai, to make something beautiful enough to matter to someone we love.

A Call to Rise: Imagination as Infrastructure for a Sustainable Future

The most powerful force for change is not money, not data, not even political will — it’s belief. The belief that a better world is possible. The belief that what we do matters. The belief that what we imagine, we can create.

We are not short on solutions — renewable energy, circular economies, regenerative agriculture, rewilding projects, community wealth building, nature-based solutions. What we’re short on is collective conviction.

What if every school taught future-building alongside math and science?
What if cities designed for beauty as well as efficiency?
What if innovation meant restoration instead of extraction?

Imagination is not escapism. It is the seedbed of action. The UN SDGs are not just targets. They are invitations — to think bigger, to connect deeper, to create the kind of future that feels impossible... until it’s not.

Building Your Own Sky Ladder

Cai Guo-Qiang once said, “Art is not a weapon, but a light”. That light can take many forms — a business that serves people and planet, a community garden that restores a neighborhood, a film that changes public consciousness, a policy that shifts power.

Your sky ladder might not involve gunpowder or global attention. But it starts the same way: with a vision. With a moment of remembering that the world we want isn’t somewhere far away — it’s already forming in our minds.

In a time when fear dominates headlines and division fuels despair, the most radical thing we can do is to imagine. To rise.

To believe that it’s not too late.
To create, together, a ladder to the sky.

Watch the “Sky Ladder”