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Please note this event occured in the past.
November 07, 2023 4:00 pm - December 12, 2023 5:00 pm ET

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 destabilization, 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 millennium 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
4:30 Reception
5:15 Gallery Talk
5:45 James Joyce reading by Katherine O'Callaghan with a musical performance by Ben Richter 
6:00 Musical Performance by Jonathan Hulting-Cohen, "Fluid Interference" (2022) by Aron Dahl
 
NOV 9, Thu: Contemplative Futuring-- The Sages 
12:00 Lunch with pizza-- all are welcome
12:30 Beauty, Grief, Action: a conversation in the round with Trebbe Johnson 
3:00  Embodying Time Travel: a constellation workshop with Marianne Connor
 
NOV 28, Tue: Inclusive Futuring-- The Tricksters
2:00 Deep Listening Workshop with Ben Richter
3:00 Rooted in Truth with Andre Strongbearheart
4:00 Crip Time, Crip Space, Crip Scene with Jeff Kasper 
5:00 Afro-Retro Futurism: a storytelling workshop with Oluwatoyin T. Okele and Richie Wills
 
NOV 29, Wed: Interactive Futuring-- The Fates
3:00 Ensemble Building & Applied Theater with Rebecca Brown Adelman 
4:00 Metaphysical Carwash fortunes & poetry with Edie Meidav & Friends
6:00 Future Slam: open mic poetry & prose, with MC Montanna Harling
 
NOV 30, Thu: Elemental Futuring-- The Carbon Carousel
3:30 The Renaissance of the Earth with Suzette Martin’s “Tipping Points”
4:00 Carbon Cycle 101 with Rob DeConto and Julie Brigham-Grette 
4:30 Carbon Culture & Environmental Humanities with Malcolm Sen
 

Curatorial Design Team: Bella Donovan, Ben Richter, Kelly Feeney, Madeleine Charney, Meredith Degyansky, Ray Mann, Sandy Litchfield

Sponsored by UMASS Amherst, Faculty Research Grant, Architecture Research Collaborative, UMass Amherst Libraries, School of Earth & Sustainability, Office of Equity and Inclusion, Design Building Gallery & The Puffin Foundation