November marks the start of Overmorrow, an ongoing festival that I have co-developed and produced with Andrew Wilson, Calum Bayne, Ciara Lenihan, Evelyn Cromwell, gobscure, Jessica Bennett, Jenny Mc Namara and Lydia Bailey as part of The NewBridge Project's Programme Committee. Taking place between November 2020 – April 2021 the festival will include a series of commissions, talks, screenings and events which explore our collective futures with audiences, members and communities.
In an attempt to unlock the future, we need to throw open the window of our minds. Now is the time for alternative horizons that spark the imagination, the time to forge resources for resistance and pursue new possibilities, the time for building our own utopias.
The global pandemic has deeply affected our everyday lives and the way we perceive the world. It has increased precarity and uncertainty for communities and exposed a lack of equality and fairness in our societies. But history shows us that pandemics can precipitate radical change. They open up moments of societal, political and cultural flux as citizens seek to redress the deep-seated problems of their times. For many, there can be no going back to ‘normal’ when normal is deeply unsettling, unjust and unsustainable.
The pre-Covid-19 world had become accustomed to the status quo, consenting to iniquitous and exploitative hierarchies through the foreclosure of alternative possibilities. We watched as voracious capitalists plundered the earth and our experiences to feed their insatiable lust for exponential growth and shareholder profits. As neoliberal economics colonised every aspect of society and hyper-normalised its covetous and individualistic rational. As this amoral life-order sacrificed the natural world in its idolisation of materialism and consumerism. Many protested, but the world acquiesced. We had buried utopia, out of ignorance that prevented us from imagining a new world.
Overmorrow will aid us in our quest to reimagine our futures and how we might chart a new path from the present. Exploring science-fiction as a tool for fictioning new possibilities, it will consider the futures we have lost and those we can still pursue. It will contemplate the public spaces of tomorrow and think about how the Pandemic has highlighted the problems in society that stand between us and utopia. We’ll be using this within our programme to challenge the competitive structures of the art world and consider the future of art and arts organisations.
In an attempt to unlock the future, we need to throw open the window of our minds. Now is the time for alternative horizons that spark the imagination, the time to forge resources for resistance and pursue new possibilities, the time for building our own utopias.
The global pandemic has deeply affected our everyday lives and the way we perceive the world. It has increased precarity and uncertainty for communities and exposed a lack of equality and fairness in our societies. But history shows us that pandemics can precipitate radical change. They open up moments of societal, political and cultural flux as citizens seek to redress the deep-seated problems of their times. For many, there can be no going back to ‘normal’ when normal is deeply unsettling, unjust and unsustainable.
The pre-Covid-19 world had become accustomed to the status quo, consenting to iniquitous and exploitative hierarchies through the foreclosure of alternative possibilities. We watched as voracious capitalists plundered the earth and our experiences to feed their insatiable lust for exponential growth and shareholder profits. As neoliberal economics colonised every aspect of society and hyper-normalised its covetous and individualistic rational. As this amoral life-order sacrificed the natural world in its idolisation of materialism and consumerism. Many protested, but the world acquiesced. We had buried utopia, out of ignorance that prevented us from imagining a new world.
Overmorrow will aid us in our quest to reimagine our futures and how we might chart a new path from the present. Exploring science-fiction as a tool for fictioning new possibilities, it will consider the futures we have lost and those we can still pursue. It will contemplate the public spaces of tomorrow and think about how the Pandemic has highlighted the problems in society that stand between us and utopia. We’ll be using this within our programme to challenge the competitive structures of the art world and consider the future of art and arts organisations.
‘It’s not a finished utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and
active’ - Bertrand Russell.
Throughout this programme we would like to foster practical conversation that acknowledges discomfort, embodies varied agendas and recognises privilege, breaks down silos and, ultimately, creates a space for a new kind of growth. Through collective dialogues, together we can proactively and collectively shape the future we want.
Find out more here.
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