Hope in the Heat: In Conversation

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FREE

Wed 02 Jun 2021

18.30 - 19.30 BST

Online Event

Somerset House Future Producers

An in conversation exploring the creative process behind Hope in the Heat, a project exploring and imagining hopeful visions of climate altered futures, with the Somerset House Future Producers and Studios resident Superflux.

Hope in the Heat invited six young creatives to imagine hopeful futures for the hotter world of tomorrow.

Over the course of seven mentored sessions with Anab and Jon, Directors of award-winning speculative design and art studio Superflux, six Future Producers developed their own perspectives and visions for other possible worlds; from intergalactic intimacy and space travel envisioned through the black queer gaze, to plant generated poetry and post-colonial herbology.

“The way a society imagines its future matters. And who gets to do the imagining matters.”

Oliver Morton, Planet Remade

After a warm welcome from Cassie Robinson, National Lottery Community Fund, this event will explore the creative responses of the Future Producers, which have been brought together in a digital space curated by Studio Koseda. In conversation with Superflux’s Jon and Anab, the Future Producers will discuss the ways in which their work developed and manifested over the course of the eight-week process, and explore the forces facing their futures.

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Superflux

Superflux is a critically acclaimed art and design studio imagining plural futures at the intersections of climate crisis, technology and more-than-human politics.

Founded by Anab Jain and Jon Ardern the studio’s work imagines and builds future worlds we can experience in the present moment. By creating new ways of seeing, being and acting, their work challenges us to question the decisions we make today, and inspires us to fight for a future worth living for. Superflux’s work has been described in the press as “powerful”, “stirring and “electrifying”.

Over the last decade the studio has delivered creative innovation projects for organisations such as Google AI, Govt. of UAE, Cabinet Office UK, Mozilla, DeepMind, UNDP and Omidyar Network. Simultaneously, they have produced immersive installations that have been exhibited across the world including Centre for Contemporary Culture Barcelona, ArtScience Museum Singapore, National Museum of China, MoMA, V&A Museum, La Biennale de Venezia and Vienna Biennale for Change.

Somerset House Engagement & Skills

Somerset House’s Engagement & Skills activity exists to remove barriers and increase representation in the arts and creative sector, within our workforce and audiences. The programme and creative community at Somerset House is accessed as a resource to develop skills, engagement and entertainment, aimed to give under-represented, emerging talent aged 18-30 access the skills, experiences and progression routes to pursue careers in the creative sector, while connecting to our programme and resident creative community.

Future Producers

The Future Producers Programme was launched in 2020. It provides a public platform for young people's work, facilitates introductions to collaborators and mentors, and offers regular meets for groups to support and advise on all areas of successfully launching new cultural events.

The Future Producers working on this project are:

Cherece Lucina
Francesca Rechere
Jessie Zhang
Okocha Obasi
Valeria Toro
Zahrah Vawda

This work has been made possible by the Emerging Futures Fund, a new initiative from the National Lottery Community Fund in response to conversations that emerged over the course of the year about the future beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Our project is a paid opportunity, one of 51 initiatives that aim to ensure a diverse range of communities have a chance to contribute to and shape those future.

Hope in the Heat is supported through an Emerging Future Fund grant from the National Lottery Community Fund.