Imagine Together: Hopeful Visions for Our Future
April 19, 2021: Exhibition Opens Virtually
Everything in our past was grown from the seeds of someone else’s imagination. Every book you’ve read, every movie you’ve watched, every school you’ve attended, every city you’ve lived in; all were once just ideas.
Now, our imaginations will shape the future. Our thoughts, dreams, goals, hopes, ideas, beliefs and feelings can shape reality. How can your imagination transform the world into a more loving and inclusive place? How can your imagination help make the future a hopeful and joyful place where there is room for everyone?
The exhibit theme is inspired by the work of author adrienne maree brown. The following quotes from her book Emergent Strategy; Shaping Change, Changing Worlds were very influential when dreaming up this exhibit:
“Art is not neutral. It either upholds or disrupts the status quo, advancing or regressing justice. We are living now inside the imagination of people who thought economic disparity and environmental destruction were acceptable costs for their power. It is our right and responsibility to write ourselves into the future. All organizing is science fiction. If you are shaping the future, you are a futurist. And visionary fiction is a way to practice the future in our minds, alone and together.
"Visionary fiction is neither utopian or dystopian, instead it is like real life: Hard, realistic...Hopeful as a strategy. Visionary fiction disrupts the hero narrative concept that one person (often one white man, often Matt Damon) alone has the skills to save the world. Cultivate fiction that explorers change as a collective, bottom-up process. Fiction that centers those who are currently marginalized- not to be nice, but because those who survive on the margins tend to be the most experientially innovative- practicing survival-based efficiency, doing the most with the least, an important skill area on a planet whose resources are under assault by less marginalized people. Visionary fiction is constantly applying lessons from our past to our future(s).”
“Science fiction is simply a way to practice the future together. i suspect that is what many of you are up to, practicing futures together, practicing justice together, living into new stories. It is our right and responsibility to create a new world.”
“Science fiction, particularly visionary fiction, is where I go when I need the medicine of possibility applied to the trauma of human behavior.”
Now, our imaginations will shape the future. Our thoughts, dreams, goals, hopes, ideas, beliefs and feelings can shape reality. How can your imagination transform the world into a more loving and inclusive place? How can your imagination help make the future a hopeful and joyful place where there is room for everyone?
The exhibit theme is inspired by the work of author adrienne maree brown. The following quotes from her book Emergent Strategy; Shaping Change, Changing Worlds were very influential when dreaming up this exhibit:
“Art is not neutral. It either upholds or disrupts the status quo, advancing or regressing justice. We are living now inside the imagination of people who thought economic disparity and environmental destruction were acceptable costs for their power. It is our right and responsibility to write ourselves into the future. All organizing is science fiction. If you are shaping the future, you are a futurist. And visionary fiction is a way to practice the future in our minds, alone and together.
"Visionary fiction is neither utopian or dystopian, instead it is like real life: Hard, realistic...Hopeful as a strategy. Visionary fiction disrupts the hero narrative concept that one person (often one white man, often Matt Damon) alone has the skills to save the world. Cultivate fiction that explorers change as a collective, bottom-up process. Fiction that centers those who are currently marginalized- not to be nice, but because those who survive on the margins tend to be the most experientially innovative- practicing survival-based efficiency, doing the most with the least, an important skill area on a planet whose resources are under assault by less marginalized people. Visionary fiction is constantly applying lessons from our past to our future(s).”
“Science fiction is simply a way to practice the future together. i suspect that is what many of you are up to, practicing futures together, practicing justice together, living into new stories. It is our right and responsibility to create a new world.”
“Science fiction, particularly visionary fiction, is where I go when I need the medicine of possibility applied to the trauma of human behavior.”