Program
Words for the Future | a publication series
Rachel Armstrong, Silvia Bottiroli, Andrea Božić & Julia Willms | TILT, Gurur Ertem, Daniel L. Everett, Moses Kilolo | Jalada, Ashish Kothari, Sarah Moeremans, Ogutu Muraya, Rodrigo Sobarzo, Simone van Saarloos, Isabelle Stengers, et al.
Words for the Future
If you were to propose a word for the future, what would it be? What language would it be in? How would this word sound when you say it out loud? What would this sound evoke in peoples minds? What would it perform?
Words can conjure up worlds. With language we can name, describe and give birth. It is said that we are within a so-called crisis of imagination; that we can’t imagine alternatives for the current dominant systems that are failing. What does that say about language and the way we use it, and what potential is there in language to change this crisis? If we want to re-imagine our ways of being in and with the world, could we then start to describe it differently?
Words for the Future is a many-voiced series of ten words that point to the possible imaginations of various futures. Ten people from diverse fields of knowledge – ecology, sociology, experimental architecture, education, linguistics, philosophy, i.e. – are asked to propose a word for the future.
Each of them writes a text that unfolds the desired or foreseen way of thinking or doing, this word defines for them. At the same time an artist, in whose work this particular word seems already latently present, is invited to respond to it. By bringing both the essay and the artistic responds together in one publication, each issue becomes a dialogue around one word.
The texts and images that arose seem not only as glimpses of what possibly lies ahead, even more perhaps, these words and visions are engagements with the present. With this vocabulary of re-imagined words we might be able to begin to speak about the yet unnamed imaginaries that we notice around us, and have for the future.
Enjoy the journey through the worlds of these words,
Nienke Scholts
October, 2017
21 October 2017
16:00
Launch issue #1!
Words for the Future will be launched on Saturday October 21st during the house-event Human not Human. Here the very first word and issue of the series with contributions by experimental architect Rachel Armstrong and artists Andrea Božić & Julia Wilms | TILT will be presented.
Follow the series @ the 100 Day House
The first phase of Words for the Future will release as a series of ten issues during the 100 Day House of Veem House for Performance (September 23rd – December 31st 2017)
The Future
The Future Publishing and Printing is an experiment-focused studio. Over the years, their activities have ranged from editorial design, curation, and book making, to creating and organizing exhibitions and residencies. They see their role being to make ideas public in the medium that seems to fit best with the idea.
Curator / Editor:
Nienke Scholts
Contributors:
Rachel Armstrong, Silvia Bottiroli, Andrea Božić & Julia Willms | TILT, Gurur Ertem, Daniel L. Everett, Moses Kilolo | Jalada, Ashish Kothari, Sarah Moeremans, Ogutu Muraya, Rodrigo Sobarzo, Simone van Saarloos, Isabelle Stengers, et al.
Advisor:
Anne Breure
Copy Editor:
Noah Voelker
Publisher / Designer:
The Future
Supported by:
Words for the Future is a publication project by Nienke Scholts, co-produced by and in collaboration with Veem House for Performance | 100 Day House, as part of the Life Long Burning (LLB) network supported by the Cultural Program of the European Union.