Futuretelling
Futuretelling is an ongoing community visioning project about the future, and a guided practice for traveling to the future and returning with tales of what it might be like to exist or even thrive there.
Beginning in 2019, I’ve collaborated with DC area community organizers, using Futuretelling to travel together to possible futures of Washington, DC, then returning to the present and creating illustrations and speculative objects to bring their future visions of DC to life.
Like artists, organizers make the future tangible, meaningful, and possible for people in the present. Through support from 730DC, Sanctuaries DC, and neighborhood mutual aid groups, I’ve published local organizers’ visions for the future of DC in many different forms. Below are vignettes from two of those future visions.
With grant support from Rhizome in 2021, I created an easy-to-use guide to Futuretelling — Futuretelling cards, wich are a tarot-like deck of cards that anyone can use to do Futuretelling, for solo time travels, travels with friends, or community visioning.
May 21st, 2120
Mutual aid organizer Gabrielle Newell and I glimpsed scenes from her future life in spring 2120 that I transformed into an illustrated piece of speculative fiction for 730DC.
October 29, 2121
Artist and activist Monica Jahan Bose and I traveled to October 2121 and landed in an interesting future for DC. We managed to send postcards from this future version of DC to everyone who subscribed to Rhizome’s Community Supported Art program 100 years in the past (the inaugural year of the program, 2021).
Here’s the mail from the future that I created and sent:
Futuretelling cards and workshops
I’ve taught Futuretelling to dozens of artists, organizers, activists, and designers using Futuretelling cards and guides that I designed and in workshops I’ve facilitated all over the US.
