In contrast to politics, art doesn’t try to readjust or fix the machine. Instead, it does something more subversive and troubling: it shows the possibility of another world, – Zapatista Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano.
A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven, – James Baldwin
I’m speak today as an artist and a filmmaker. Many of my peers on this continent have been threatened with losing opportunities, had publishing and presentation opportunities cancelled or withdrawn and are being pressured for speaking out on Palestine.
But the situation is far far worse for my Palestinian peers. They are being killed. In Gaza and the West Bank – my peers – the artists, filmmakers, poets and storytellers are losing their lives, their families, their homes and their institutions.
Over 90 journalists have been killed and countless artists, poets and writers have lost their lives.
I am not speaking about this because a poet or a journalist’s life is more valuable than anyone else’s. I want to speak to this because of the deliberate targetting of artists, writers, poets and journalists.
Why is the Israeli regime killing the stroytellers?
This deliberate targetting is about attempting to control the narratives, to control history, by silencing the story tellers.
In the last nine weeks over 352 educational institutes have been bombed, along with the destruction of universities and archives. This is an attempt to destroy stories and to destroy memories. This is an attempt at erasure of Palestinian histories, presents and futures.
This week we have seen raids and attacks on the Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp in the West Bank and the arrest of their general manager Mustafa Sheta.
This week the Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa was killed. His colleague Wael Wahdouh, who just weeks ago lost his wife and children, stayed with him as he bled to death, Wael himself injured.
Israel’s war on Gaza is the deadliest for media workers ever recorded, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Against this erasure, as international media are denied access to Gaza we turn to the citizen journalists, we know them by their first names, Bisan, Motaz, Plestia.
Poet Sara Saleh explains that “poets name what is going on”.
Here is Australia we see attempts of silencing of artists with the backlash generated when three artists took their curtail call at STC wearing keffiyeh and by threats of removal from exhibitions and galleries – or cutting of ties such as Mike Parr who was dropped by his gallerist of 36 years Anna Schwartz.
Artists are not just here to help us make sense of the world – we are also workers, we can also strike, we can also refuse. We can use our platforms to amplify the voices of Palestinian artists and storytellers. I am part of both Creatives for Palestine and MEEA Members for Palestine
#CreativesForPalestine demands are:
An end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
For the Australian government and Foreign Minister Penny Wong to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
For our arts institutions to join the call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
For the safety and rights of artists to be honoured wherever they may work.
Finally, I want to be very careful with my language. I do not give voice to or speak for Palestinian people. Palestinian people have voices and they have been speaking for a long time – we must listen. Arundhati Roy said ““There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”
We refuse to allow people to be silenced, we listen to their voices, we amplify their voices.
I won’t read the final poem of Professor and writer Refaat Alereer – today, but it’s opening line;
If I Must Die Refaat Alareer
If I must die, you must live to tell my story
Refaat, we will speak – we will tell your story.
We don’t speak for you, but we stand beside you – we will share your stories, we will refuse your erasure, we will refuse for you to be silenced. We will use our platforms. We will amplify your words.
Palestinians have strong voices and have a rich history of literature, poetry and filmmaking. I encourage you to seek out the words, films, poetry. You can find free e-books at Verso, Haymarket and streaming films at the Arab Film Institute,Aflamuna, Free Palestine Film Festival.
“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” – Toni Morrison
I stand with the storytellers, artists, poets and journalists in Palestine.
Your stories matter, you are teaching us so much. We will share them.
Summons by Aurora Levins Morales
“Last night I dreamed ten thousand grandmothers from the twelve hundred corners of the earth walked out into the gap one breath deep between the bullet and the flesh between the bomb and the family. They told me we cannot wait for governments. There are no peacekeepers boarding planes. There are no leaders who dare to say every life is precious, so it will have to be us. They said we will cup our hands around each heart. We will sing the earth’s song, the song of water, a song so beautiful that vengeance will turn to weeping, the mourners will embrace, and grief replace every impulse toward harm. Ten thousand is not enough, they said, so, we have sent this dream, like a flock of doves into the sleep of the world.
Wake up. Put on your shoes. You who are reading this, I am bringing bandages and a bag of scented guavas from my trees. I think I remember the tune. Meet me at the corner. Let’s go.”
Reading Summons at Free Palestine Central Vic rally.
In the sea of powerful statements of solidarity with Palestine from Jewish collectives, unions, health workers, University staff and students,artists and many more, the climate movement in Australia remains notably absent. Everywhere I look there are groups organising; rank and file unionists, student strikes, people joining the BDS campaign, teach-ins, sits-ins at arms manufacturers, road blockades at Pine Gap and of Israeli boats at the ports. There are people organising in regional towns from a recent bake sale for Palestine in Bega to the regular Sunday rallies where I live on Djaara Country. So where is the climate movement?
Searching the press releases, news and social media feeds of several leading environmental NGOs, their CEOs and executive leadership, I struggle to see any posts since October 7th mentioning Israel, Palestine, Gaza or a ceasefire.
There are some exceptions. In mid-November Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC), Tomorrow Movement and School Strike for Climate hosted a webinar; Brisbane climate strikers held a solidarity action as part of the last School Strike for Climate; Friends of the Earth Australia (FoE) have been active in their support; 350.org Australia published a blog and a solidarity statement: ‘Palestine is a climate justice issue’ and Move Beyond Coal posted the blog ‘No climate justice on occupied land’.
Many individuals across the climate movement are of course active in support of Palestine and many are organising to push their organisations to take a more public stance. Propelled by the absence of a movement-wide position, a range of groups — including ActionAid Australia, Democracy in Colour, Muslim Collective, Extinction Rebellion Australia, FoE, Loud Jew Collective, Jews against fascism, Tipping Point & 350.org Australia —last week hosted a Land and Climate Justice Webinar.
I understand there is some work behind the scenes to get a climate movement statement drafted and signed on to by key orgs similar to the one released on October 20th by Climate Action Network International – which Climate Action Network Australia (CANA) abstained from signing.
So why the delay?
It can’t be for lack of coordination or a precedent. The Australian climate movement coordinates itself through CANA, which comprises over 150 member organisations and an active email list and Slack channel. There are countless open letters circulating every few weeks across these platforms, encouraging organisations to sign on. Recent examples include: an ACOSS lead statement for Fair Fast and Inclusive Action on Climate Change; an open letter signed by 43 climate organisations encouraging members to vote Yes to the Voice referendum; a Climate Council hosted letter to Tanya Plibersek, and an Australia Institute lead open letter from scientists and over 50 climate organisations calling for No New Fossil Fuel Projects. A small handful of climate organisations — 350.org Australia, FoE and AYCC — signed on to the Australian Civil Society statement in solidarity with Gaza released in late October.
The climate movement has also responded quickly to other conflicts, including most recently the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Several of the aforementioned climate organisations and leaders have posted on the war in Ukraine and the ramifications of the conflict for the fossil fuel industry and the climate crisis. Some climate organisations shifted resources to enable campaigners to focus on the climate dimensions of the war and maintain their focus on that work today.
Perhaps organisations fear a backlash and the potential risk to their charitable DGR status? In 2017, the Guardian reported that
the Civil Voices report found that charities and non-government organisations operate in an ‘insidious’ environment where ‘self-censorship’ is rife because of funding agreements, management pressure and the ‘implied repercussions’ of political speech.
Or is it that environmental organisations are worried about staying in their lane? That there is not enough of a ‘climate angle’ to speak up? Aside from the fact that there shouldn’t need to be a climate dimension to speak up on a genocide, the fact is that there are myriad reasons to why this is a climate justice issue.
Palestine is a climate justice issue. War is a climate justice issue.
In 2017, Amnesty International reported that since 1967 Palestinians have had to obtain a permit from the Israeli Army to construct ‘any new water installation’. On top of this lack of autonomy, Amnesty explains that in Gaza, ‘some 90-95 per cent of the water supply is contaminated and unfit for human consumption.’ This was before the recent attacks during which Israel has maintained a blockade restricting resources moving in and out of Gaza, severely limiting people’s access to clean water. Abeer Butmeh, coordinator of the Palestinian NGOs Network explains on the Drilled podcast, ‘when we talk about climate change adaptation, we cannot cope with the climate change phenomena without full sovereignty on our water resources’.
‘Gaza Marine’ is a gas reserve of an estimated trillion cubic feet thirty-six kms offshore from the Gaza Strip. In June this year, Israel gave preliminary approval for its development. In a chilling example of disaster capitalism, amidst uncertainty about how long the bombings will continue and while bodies are still buried under the rubble, both President Biden’s energy security advisor Amos Hochstein and the energy news site Oil Price are speculating on the how these gas reserves could help Gaza’s recovery.
A critical consideration for the Australian climate movement is the involvement of Adani in weapons manufacturing. The company behind the massively polluting Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin has recently acquired a 70 per cent interest in Israel’s newly privatised Haifa Port and are in business with Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit. Together with Elbit, they manufacture drones, while with Israel Weapons Industries (IWI) they make sniper rifles and machine guns.
Then there are the environmental implications of military offensives themselves.
Israel is armed with nuclear weapons and has one of the most powerful militaries in the world. It is also a significant arms manufacturer and exporter. The use of chemical weapons such as white phosphorous, bombing of infrastructure and the energy-intensive operations of their army all have enormous carbon footprints and wide-ranging environmental consequences. Bombing leads to air pollution, contaminated land and poisoned water. This further impacts the health of land and people, the ability to grow food, to fish and to access clean water.
On November 18th, six weeks in to the genocide unfolding in Gaza, the Jordan Times published an analysis by engineers from Yarmouk University of the carbon emissions from the attacks. The report estimated that ‘in the first 35 days of heightened conflict, emissions amounting to approximately 60.304 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents were discharged.’ It is estimated that the global military footprint makes up 5.5 per cent of global emissions, these are currently excluded from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Ahead of COP28 the European Parliament has called for the closure of this ‘military emissions gap’.
Many have suggested that Palestine is a ‘litmus test for humanity’ and that what happens in Gaza now foreshadows possible futures for all of us. Which brings us to the issue of binding global agreements. The global climate movement pours enormous energy in to the UN Conference of Parties (COP) processes in the hope of creating a global agreement that compels countries to stick to the emissions reduction targets in line with best available science. If global peacekeeping agreements and international humanitarian standards cannot be upheld even when the whole world is watching Gaza, then what chance is there for global binding climate agreements to be achieved and respected?
Follow the money, hold space for complexity
With all this information in the public domain, why then are we only hearing from a handful of environmental and climate groups in Australia?
When I put these questions to climate organisers, I began to hear worrying reports of pressure not to speak out on Palestine or to discuss the issue at a network level. The reasons appear to be concerns for potential loss of funding and the possibility of fracturing coalitions.
Several people shared their experience and knowledge of one-on-one calls, emails and text messages from donors and climate leaders to CEOs and organisational executives discouraging people from speaking out in support of Palestine. I also understand a number of funders indicated that they would withdraw funding if groups took a public stance and that several organisations have already been advised their funding is at risk.
It appears that this has led to senior management and staff in some organisations advising workers that it is not acceptable to speak on Palestine or to wear symbols of solidarity such as keffiyehs at work or in media interviews. Despite this, it was heartening to see Palestinian flags and other symbols of solidarity at the Rising Tide People’s Blockade in Newcastle and to note that over 175 people attended the Land and Justice webinar.
Coalition-building is complex and there are many ways of coming at and understanding this work. In their Boston Review essay ‘How Much Discomfort Is the Whole World Worth?’ Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba observe that
broader movements are struggles, not sanctuaries. They are full of contradiction and challenges we may feel unprepared for.
They go on to argue for working with discomfort to be able to build larger movements, but also acknowledge there are times when we ‘have to draw hard lines.’
This moment is highlighting an existing tension about the identities and principles that animate climate organising on this continent. It may invite us to ask: is this a climate action movement or a climate justice movement?
There have been many attempts to organise with a greater commitment to climate justice principles as well as to build a more diverse movement. This is reflected in the recent CANA Power Through Collaboration conference program and in a range of internal movement mapping processes. It is fair to say that there are generational tensions as well as a climate action vs climate justice divide across the movement. How the leadership of large organisations respond right now will have far-ranging impacts on the trust and engagement of younger climate activists — especially those who are from the very communities that the movement wants to engage more with.
What I learned from climate organisers is unsettling and familiar. I am also hearing about similar pressure and fear of backlash and fall-outs in the arts and media industries in which I work. What really gets me here, though, is that the climate movement aspires to be a movement based on justice. The silence from the larger organisations in the climate space, however, raises concerns for the strength of the shared principles of the movement, as well as questions regarding the genuine understanding of and commitment to climate justice amongst movement leaders.
What do we mean when we say climate justice?
It is immoral that rich nations cannot find adequate funds for addressing climate impact, yet could instantly find billions of dollars… to support a war on the people of Gaza … There can be no peace without justice. And there can be no climate justice without human rights.
Tasneem Essop, Executive Director Climate Action Network, COP28, December 2023
Climate justice builds on the groundwork of environmental Justice, a phrase coined by movements led by people of colour on Turtle Island (USA and Canada) through the 1980-90s designed to highlight the unfair exposure of poor and marginalised communities, often along racial lines, to environmental hazards, waste and pollution. Organisers and movements in the Global South built on this framing when they issued the call for climate justice. Climate justice identifies both the disproportionate impacts on those who have had the least to do with creating the climate crisis and the need to centre and resource the leadership and visions of those communities in responding to the crisis.
The first Climate Justice Summit was held in 2000 alongside the COP6 in The Hague. In 2002, the Bali Principles of Climate Justice were ratified by a coalition of international groups. Since then, the term and the values it speaks to have gained significant traction, influencing the content of the COP meetings and framing debates and campaigns globally.
On this continent, climate justice necessarily encompasses colonial histories and present-day demands for sovereignty for First Nations people. The parallel struggles for land rights and self-determination are the foundation of longstanding solidarity and connection between First Nations people and Palestinian liberation movements. This is demonstrated by the decades-long support for Palestine by (among others) historian and activist Gary Foley and or the outspoken leadership of First Nations organisers backing Free Palestine rallies across the continent.
The robust and enduring connection between these movements has laid much of the ground for the organised response to the genocide here and is critical to listen to. This is especially necessary for the organisations that express their solidarity with First Nations people and regularly speak to the need to centre their wisdom in the climate movement.
Like the words, sustainability or reconciliation, climate justice is at risk of being hollowed out of value if organisations do not meaningfully follow the leadership of the communities most impacted by climate change and uphold an intersectional approach in their work.
If we are to build a robust climate justice movement on this continent we need to have a fundamental commitment to all human rights. We have to challenge all forms of othering and racism including antisemitism and Islamophobia. We need to stick by our principles even if it means risking our funding and stretching our coalitions. We need to be prepared to have difficult conversations and hold complexity. We also need to show up in moments of solidarity.
Step into the whirlwind
This is a powerful moment. People are finding one another, educating themselves, taking collective risks, putting their bodies on the line, joining countless signal groups, meeting fellow union members, researching, learning, connecting, organising. It’s global, dynamic and embodies a diversity of tactics and targets following the lead of decades-long organising of Palestinian liberation movements and of progressive Jewish voices around the world.
There is no doubt that this organising and mobilising pressure is influencing media coverage and policy decisions including the recent temporary ceasefire. It is drawing attention to and is building a deeper understanding of what is happening in Gaza.
Movement trainers The Ayni Institute, who have worked with the climate movement here, call times like this the ‘moment of the whirlwind’ – the heady, adrenalin-fuelled moments where power feels less fixed and change feels more possible. Mark and Paul Engler, who work with Ayni, describe this as a
dramatic public event or series of events that sets off a flurry of activity, and that this activity quickly spreads beyond the institutional control of any one organization. It inspires a rash of decentralized action, drawing in people previously unconnected to established movement groups.
The handful of times I have been part of moments of the whirlwind — around Jabiluka, Woomera2002, in the anti-globalisation movement and the mobilisations against the Iraq War — I have rapidly made deep new connections, many of which have carried through the decades that followed. If the climate movement does not visibly show up for Palestine, it will lose an opportunity to build power and connections with the diverse communities who are leading the mobilisations. We remember who shows up in these moments, just as people remember showing up. But beyond these strategic considerations, failing to show up would be a stain on the soul of the movement itself. It is not possible to build a climate justice movement if we do not have the ability to stand up for justice for fear of losing funding, having difficult conversations or of our coalitions not holding.
This essay is not intended as a call out, but a call in. It’s an appeal to those in positions of leadership in the climate movement to show up.
Let this be a line in the sand. Let us learn our history. Let us listen to liberation movements around the world. Let us draw connections between climate justice and self-determination on this continent and a Free Palestine, an end to the invasion of Ukraine and an end to all other assaults on human rights around the world. Conflicts for land and water will shape the decades to come. Showing up for each other and building power to demand justice is our only hope for a humane future.
Thanks to the many people I spoke to in researching this piece.
Image:Collective civil society action calling for a Ceasefire at COP28, Dubai, December 2023. Credit: Friends of the Earth International.
Love and rockets to everyone who loved and was entangled with Jess Search.
I’ve recently started a PhD in impact producing – it’s practice-lead and the new climate film that Maya Donna and our Unquiet team are developing will be part of the research.
I’ve been reading widely trying to find a way to frame the dynamics of impact producing – beyond the ethics of how we make the content and before the audience reception, the place of strategy, communications, partnerships and collaboration with community and participants that makes the web and weave of this work.
A friend (photographer Jesse Boylan) put me on to feminist physicist Karen Barad and their notion of agency as not something existing in individuals, but instead to be understood as existing through relationships and what they call intra-action*.
As I process the loss of Jess Search I am struck by Jess’s amazing work of intra-action – of her ability to recognise and accelerate entangled agency. Not just between herself and others but between others and others, connecting, convening, introducing, listening. A network weaver, an agent of entangling.
I met Sandi DuBowski at the Crossover Labs in 2009 and this is where I first discovered there were others like me out there, working at the intersection of film, art and changemaking and that there was a growing field and practice coming in to focus. Through Sandi I discovered Working Films and BRITDOC (now Doc Society). (Side note of timing in the way of loops, I met Working Films as they were facing the loss of founder Robert West and this makes me draw breath now).
I applied for a Churchill Fellowship to explore film and change practices worldwide in 2012 which I undertook in 2013. Between applying and undertaking the fellowship in 2012 BRITDOC had held a retreat on Osea Island, UK and along with practitioners who attended had coined the term Impact Producer. London was my first stop on the Churchill (which I combined with brokering the relationships for the Namatjira family to visit Buckingham Palace alongside the show’s tour to London in 2013). I emailed Beadie and then hotdesked out of BRITDOC’s offices for 6 weeks, absorbing, listening, learning, connecting.
There’s so many moments rushing back to me — Good Pitch Chicago, cocktails at CPH DOX, japanese dinner in Sydney, raves and ideas at IDFA, texts over whatsapp working out strategies to intervene in the terf narratives, dancing to Peaches in a Sundance condo, so many memories of Jess and the networks she has woven.
She did of course, not weave these in isolation and I honour too the wisdom of Beadie, Maxyne, Sandra and the extended Doc Society team in unleashing all of this beauty and power and networking and entangling. I am also thinking of Sandi, Jennifer, Brenda, Nancy, Lina, Ingrid, Justine, Joanna, Sonya, Molly, Hollie, Sahar Judith, Rebecca, Pamela, Paco and so many other wonders I have met and loved through these networks.
I am grieving not just Jess, but also her commitment to struggle. Oh how we need joy and strategy and vision and struggle. The work will continue, the struggle will continue and I promise Jess I will triple down on my commitment. I will share everything, I will listen for signals, not noise, I will connect, I will remain curious and I will be brave.
Thank you Jess and my deepest love to everyone weeping and mourning across our entangled networks as we weave stories and strategies for justice.
Love and solidarity forever, Rest In Power, Jess.
Alex
*
Intra-action is a concept introduced by Karen Barad. It describes the mutual constitution of entangled agency, that is the mutual constitution of our ability to act. When two entities intra-act, they do so in co-constituitive ways. This means that agency is not a preexisting given. The ability to act emerges from within the relationship not outside of it. And this ability constantly changes and adapts according to processes it is involved in. – Make Commoning Work wiki
Watch this powerful spotlight conversation with Jess Search from BFI London Film Festival 2021.
2023.01.17 Originally published by Plurality University https://www.plurality-university.org/publications/agora-5-the-things-we-did-next
Diving into 2029: a narrative performance
‘David, let’s take a deep breath together’, says Alex Kelly, climate and social justice artist, to begin this fifth Agora: ‘Time stamp: October the 6th, 2029.’ Without further ado, she and David Pledger, artist, curator and critical thinker, casually start to share their thoughts and experiences about life in this future world. Their discussion weaves through history, politics and culture, taking us a few years forward in time. David talks about his ongoing work with a digital human, explaining how ‘our ability to figure out the human from the digital is harder and harder to grasp’. Digital humans have been replacing artists in Australia because of the huge decrease of artist population, unable to find financial sustainability. The dialogue then takes a vivid political turn (especially in the context of Australia): ‘With the development of the Truth-Telling Commissions, in parallel to the Blackfullas University, I feel that discussions about land, country and colonial history are very alive, they don’t feel as fixed as they felt in the past’, observes Alex. This ‘past’ that she refers to is our 2022 present: it becomes clear that their performance carries out a critical approach regarding our present world.
HYPHAE 1.0 Concept Model of Mycelial Narrative Generator: Dispatch by Nina Sellars, generated by Karen, Jacob, Melinda, Melissa and Nina, in response to speculative architect Liam Young’s provocation, who proposed a place called Planet City in which the entire global population moved to one city to let the rest of the planet rewild.
David continues on the subject of colonialism in Australia: ‘The possible dystopian future of an Australian race-based civil war, that some warned us about in the early 2020’s, made us work a lot harder to ensure that that future wasn’t realised.’ Thus, David reminds us of the preventive power of foresighting. ‘Truth-Telling Commission’, ‘Blackfullas University’, ‘Disaster Preparedness Space’… The artists introduce us to new cultural and institutional spaces without describing them any further, letting our imagination project whatever we want into these evocative titles. With a direct but subtle criticism of the liberal system, David relates the caregivers’ strikes that led to a renewal of our modes of relationship: ‘It wasn’t just about care as an economic tool anymore, it became about care as a necessary way of engaging with each other as human beings’. David Pledger and Alex Kelly’s narrative performance goes as far as inventing actual political reforms for the australian society: ‘One of the most interesting and radical things that student strikers did was force the calendar shift of our school years, moving the calendar year to april rather than february in recognition of the hot summer months, and repurposing the school infrastructures as bases of storage and resource use for people’, Alex shares with enthusiasm.
Activist Mission Report AF #4.2: Dispatch from the Third Assembly for the Future, generated by Mali, Jodee, John, Tal, Lara and El, and written by El Gibbs.
After half an hour of dialogue, David ends the discussion on a hopeful note, inviting us to ‘hang in there’ and trust our collective ability to create the changes we want to see in the world: ‘All this seems normal now, when it used to feel like an impossible change at the time’. Like casting a political spell, the two artists project us into a near future in which political mobilisations have led to real changes. The performance’s hidden assumption seems to be: the more you can actually see yourself in a different world – in which what was fearful yesterday has become normal – the easier change becomes.
The original futurists
Welcoming us back to 2022, Alex Kelly reminds us that ‘so-called Australia is made up of over 350 different aboriginal nations’, and specifies that she is located on the Dja Dja Wurrung territory. In doing so, she sets the scene of the highly politically engaged nature of their collective creative practice. Working with first nation collaborators is as important for them as it is instructive, particularly because they have a way of thinking about time very different from our western way, since ‘the apocalypse – British arrival – has already happened for them’. ‘First Nations peoples are the original futurists, we have so much to learn from indigenous futurism’, claims Alex enthusiastically.
After this artistic immersion, it is time to explain the collective creative practice that Alex and David created together, The Things We Did Next. Their website reads: ‘it is a collaborative practice that generates a series of interconnected artworks and projects based on collectively imagining multiple futures’. What we just experienced is one of many methods and art performances that they (and their collaborators) carry out. Alex Kelly relates how one intuition became the seed that brought the project to where it is today: ‘We are not good at imagining other futures because we are reinforced by our dystopian reality (like the global rise of right wing parties). We must become more disciplined at imagining new futures, to change our determinism’. After meeting with the artist David Pledger, they decided to undertake this purpose together, using art to bring people to practise their capacity to see a larger range of possibilities. The goal is not to design one great future, a singular and better destination, but to invent, experiment, and assume the contradictions and the plurality of what our imaginations are capable of creating: ‘the messier, the better’, claims Alex.
A Postcard from 2029: Dispatch by Sam Wallman from the First Assembly for the Future.
The method
One of the main projects within Alex and David’s practice is what they call the Assembly for the Future, which is a participatory digital workshop of future making. David Pledger explains the dramaturgical strategy of concentric circles used to create disruptive and transversal thinking. The gathering starts with a provocation (resembling the narrative performance they made at the beginning) proposed by an artist: the so-called ‘First speaker’ maps out a future world in 2029. Then, two previously selected respondents improvise a reaction to this call, speaking from the present or the future, thus creating a triangle of discourse. The assembly is then split into 10 groups, moderated by 10 artists who guide the conversations towards embracing collectively a large range of possibilities for the imagination. After one hour of conversation, each artist-moderator delivers a short snapshot of what went on in their group, shortly describing the future that they developed. Artist-moderators are then given a week to generate any form of artwork based on their group’s conversation. In addition, two other artists are invited to observe the Assembly, and are then commissioned to create artworks from the future that inspired them during the Assembly. At the end, the Assembly, generally made up of 150 people – so-called ‘Future Builders’ – produces approximately 2.5 hours of conversations, 1 ‘Provocation’ and 12 artworks called ‘Dispatches from the Future’.
‘The afterlife of the work is tentacular’, claims David. The Dispatches are openly published on the website, leading to various exhibitions, but also the artists themselves reuse what they created. For example, an artist-moderator created a Centre for Reworlding from one of the Dispatches generated during an Assembly for the Future. The participants usually find it useful to attend these assemblies: Alex relates conversations with activists and political organisers who find themselves rethinking their strategies in a less linear way.
The art of embracing the mess
Every aspect of The Things We Did Next’s practice is designed to embrace the mess, i.e. considering imperfections, differences, and trial-and-error as the most interesting and beautiful parts of life: (1) welcoming contradictory narratives, (2) mixing people from different social and cultural backgrounds, (3) and constantly questioning the biases of the methodology.
(1) Welcoming contradictory narratives: The objective is indeed to operate in the space between utopian and dystopian futures, therefore creating narratives with complexity instead of consensual and binary issues. The plurality of the futures created enables them both to be contested, discussed, and to exemplify the democratic nature of our common future. For them, embracing the mess is highly political.
(2) Mixing people from different social and cultural backgrounds: First, because diversity is a condition for the cultural richness of the narratives. Secondly, the careful approach to accessibility – including that of the design methods – reflects the political engagement of the practice’s initiators. For example, they organised an event with the objective of reuniting generations around future making. Regarding accessibility for socially disadvantaged groups, David Pledger explains that it demands specific work in order to create an environment in which ‘they feel that they have the same agency as everyone else’. While they haven’t been focusing on this issue for the Assembly for the Future project – and are conscious that they could ‘do better’ -, they conduct other artistic projects that address it directly. Each Assembly is an occasion to gather participants that reflect the Australian society, so the practitioners ‘target and send information to various social groupings, especially when choosing artists and respondents’.
(3) Constantly questioning the biases of the methodology: The challenging of the process and the method is an important ingredient of this creative collective practice. Alex and David pay a particular attention to the biases that are conveyed through the narratives that they produce. Attending to the biases in the present which can impact the future is a way both of preventing determinism and reducing the practitioners’ blind spots. ‘We cannot control, we are constantly challenged by the numerous artists and collaborators that participate in the conversations: it’s a way for us to attend to the bias that we have’, explains Alex Kelly.
Dispatch by Joshua Santospirito from the Third Assembly for the Future, after Alice Wong’s provocation, The Last Disabled Oracles.
‘Art is a process that cannot be grabbed’
Embracing the mess is also a way of resisting the instrumentalisation of their practice for capitalist means. Art is not used as a tool, but as a method and a process: ‘How do we subvert this idea that art only has a value if it can work as a tool for something?’, asks Alex. She and David are highly conscious of the current neoliberal system through which the value of art has become doing something for the world. David deplores that ‘in Australia, art is often talked about as a commodity, a cultural product, reducing an artwork to a financial unit primarily’. This is due to the fact that ‘neoliberalism shifted from an ideology into an interface, most interactions are now transactions’, continues David. Instead, they decided to think of art as something that is about creating and experimenting processes, conversations and methods. Defining their practice as a process has the advantage of rendering it resistant to the capitalist approach because ‘a process cannot be grabbed, possessed’, claims David. It is all the more important given that ‘the corporate world has an interest in futurist methodologies to support companies and protect capital’, explains Alex Kelly. In opposition to this approach, The Things We Did Next designed a practice whose goal is to ‘enable new discussions around hope, adjustment and possibility, centering care and justice’, as defined in their manifesto. I can’t help but wonder: if a process cannot be grabbed, but can be told, is storytelling just a new way for the neoliberal doctrine to instrumentalise art?
Seen from the outside, the artworks generated by the practice are intriguing but obscure. One thing is certain: you had to be there, and next time I will!
Working Drawings of the Society of the Disabled Oracle: Dispatch from the Third Assembly, from a future generated by Cindy, Ian, Millie, Jane, Steve and Debris.
This online agora took place on October 6, 2022, as part of Narratopia’s Collective Creative Practices project. It was organized by the Plurality University Network (U+), and facilitated by Alex Kelly and David Pledger.
