How are futures known and told? Who is an expert in the future? Who decides which futures are viable? Technological and economic innovation is usually foregrounded in studies of the future. But art and design have always played key cultural roles in the circulation of ideas about the future, and in the dialectic between the future as radical alternative and as an object of science and governance. Cultural values, beliefs and legacies, and the historical work that informs them, are as essential as science and economics for anticipatory practices: our relationship with past, present and future is dynamic and contextual. This presentation will explore the historical role of design in the imagination of the future and how ideas of the future are created, contested and embodied in objects and artefacts. It will also consider the role of the museum in building knowledge about the future through collections, display and relations with publics. Testing strategic drivers and trends for the futures in relation to design leads to new ways of thinking about time and temporality, and new practices for exploring continuity and change. What kinds of history do we want or need today?