Some of you have been with Juicy from the beginning.
Some of you found us through the Dreams & Obstacles room at Farm.One on August 10. Some were inside. Many RSVP’d, but the room filled before they could get a seat.
And some of you may have missed the whole thing. Everything happened so quickly that I never had the chance to pause and look back at it with you.
I want to do that now.
But first, something important.
We want the next rooms to begin with the people who were already here: the people who helped make The Juicy Times what it is, and the people who raised their hands for the Brooklyn room but could not get in.
That is why you are receiving this before we announce the next rooms to the wider world.
Registering in the Dreams & Obstacles portal puts you on the priority list. When a new room opens, we will contact this group first, before the invitation goes public.
Rooms have small capacity by design, so priority cannot guarantee a seat. It means you will hear first and have the first opportunity to join.
Now, I want to put that night into words.
Dreams & Obstacles is a collective problem-solving practice.
Dreamers say a dream out loud, and name what stands in its way. Then the whole room takes the obstacles apart: introductions, practical solutions, and breakthrough ideas.
On August 10, we brought the practice to Farm.One in Brooklyn in partnership with Humanarium.
Dig Ferreira drew the dreamers and their dreams with a sumi brush held in his mouth. Carlos David photographed people holding their dreams, handwritten on big sheets of paper. Maricruz brought people into conversation with one another.
Everyone wore a sticky badge.
The line where a name and a company usually go carried a dream
Before we even started, people leaned toward one another and asked about the dreams on their chests. Ideas started moving around the room.
Then we gathered around the first dream.
I have been running Dreams & Obstacles rooms for many years, and somewhere along the way I found my favorite way to measure them: by how many times we get goosebumps. I invite people to say “goosebumps” out loud whenever they feel them, so the whole room can notice the moment together. At Farm.One, we lost count.
One woman shared her dream of making candles as art. She had no experience promoting them and felt caught between making the work and finding the people who might love it.
The room filled her hands with ideas.
Later that evening, another dreamer said she needed a gallery. The candle-maker offered to introduce her to a friend with a gallery in Williamsburg.
She had entered the room carrying an obstacle. Before the night was over, she had become a guide for somebody else.
After spending the night drawing other people’s dreams, Dig hesitated when it was time to say his own. Then he took the microphone.
“My idea was Oprah,” he said.
He wanted to work with her on her show, documenting it through his art, and turn the work into giant canvases for an exhibition across America. But he had no idea where to begin. Four hands went up immediately. “A friend of mine was just on Oprah a few months ago,” one person said. Another began laying out a route to Oprah’s team through a vendor proposal and submissions. In less than a minute, the distance between Dig and Oprah felt much smaller. It was one of the many moments that night when people around the room said it again: “Goosebumps.”
The room was just the beginning
After everyone went home, Maddie wrote on the Partiful event page that she is a playwright and director dreaming of opening a documentary theatre company. Marcus replied that he had spent the last decade building sets for theatre and private events, and that he would reach out to her.
The room had already closed. It kept working anyway.
Around those exchanges, people began offering spaces and asking how they could bring Dreams & Obstacles to where they live.
The format has now been invited to 30 cities around the world.
All of this was growing beneath a social media post. Posts disappear. Even the people who care most can lose one another inside the feed.
The Dreams & Obstacles Portal
So I built the Dreams & Obstacles portal at dreamsandobstacles.com.
Inside, you can write down your dream and what stands in its way. Your profile stays private until you decide otherwise.
You can also tell us how you would like to participate, whether you want to enter a room, help another dreamer, or explore hosting one
For this first priority window, registering is also how we know to contact you before the next rooms are announced publicly.
If you have already registered, you are on the list.
If you have not, this is your invitation.
I want our people in these rooms. I would love the next chapter to begin with you.
May all be juicy. 🍊
Fedor Sokolov
Founder & Editor-in-Juice
*all photos by Carlos David carlosdavidphotography.com