Y3K: Awakening
The Futuring Lab
The Futuring Lab seeks to question, discover, and remake chrono-logical representations of time. In response to pervading anxieties about the near future– concerns about climate change, rising social inequity, racism, political division, and ecological collapse, among other things– this timely exhibition employs the practice of futuring to generate new building blocks for imagining futures that are not only possible and probable but also preferable. Futuring is a pluralistic practice; there is not one future, but many; it is interdisciplinary, democratic, and inclusive of many voices. Futuring is not an escape from the present, rather it is an awareness of our becoming at this moment, which can help increase our insight and response-ability to the long and thick now.
For this exhibition, the Design Building Gallery will feature a large interactive wall installation where visitors can post personal and political events, historic and speculative, known and unknown. This interactive Khronika pushes against the sequential and linear flow of past-present-future to envision a nonlinear entanglement of human and more-than-human events spanning the current millennia and beyond. In this effort to un-map the dominant capitalist and colonial narratives of time, the Khronika makes visible a cascade of mattering whereby the past is yet-to-come and futures re-member the forgotten. The practice of futuring extends beyond end-of-world narratives and asks us to consider both old and new economies, ecologies, and cultures of collective emancipation.
During the exhibition, the gallery will host a series of talks, events, performances, and interactive workshops by artists, activists, scientists, and other visionary imaginarians. All programming and events are free and open to the public.
NOV 8, Wed: Opening Events--The Sirens
Reception & Gallery Talk at 4:30
James Joyce reading by Katherine O'Callaghan with a performance by Ben Richter at 5:30
Musical Performance by Jonathan Hulting-Cohen, "Fluid Interference" (2022) by Aron Dahl at 6:00
NOV 9, Thu: Contemplative Futuring-- The Sages
Pizza Lunch at 12:00
Beauty, Grief, Action: A conversation in the round with Trebbe Johnson at 1:00
NOV 29, Wed: Interactive Futuring-- The Fates
Interactive Theater with Rebecca Brown Adelman at 3:00
Metaphysical Carwash (fortunes/poetry) with Edie Meidav & Friends at 4:30
Future Slam: Open Mic Readings of Poetry & Prose, with MC Montanna Harling at 6:00
NOV 30, Thu: Elemental Futuring-- The Carbon Carousel
The Renaissance of the Earth with Suzette Martin’s “Tipping Points” at 3:30
Carbon Cycle 101 with Rob DeConto and Julie Brigham-Grette at 4:00
Carbon Culture and Environmental Humanities with Malcolm Sen at 4:30
Curatorial Design Team: Bella Donovan, Ben Richter, Kelly Feeney, Madeleine Charney, Meredith Degyanski, Ray Mann, Sandy Litchfield
Sponsored by UMASS Amherst, Faculty Research Grant, Architecture Research Collaborative, Design Building Gallery & The Puffin Foundation
DESIGN BUILDING GALLERY
University of Massachusetts
John W Olver Design Building #180
551 North Pleasant Street
Amherst MA
Hours: Monday – Friday 9AM to 4PM
Closed on school holidays
Contact
Sandy Litchfield
Email: slitchfi@umass.edu