hereafter

a book and roundtable discussion creating space for radical speculation and reimagining of the future.

Book: six artists respond to the question of the future  |  sold on Unbound

The future is fragile. How do artists respond to the question of collective survival in the face of crisis? Can writing articulate, subvert and test the ever-present question of the future in modes that are nonlinear, affective and even choreographic? What are our hopes, fears and desires?

In February 2019, Charlie Ashwell and Es Morgan were in residence at LADA’s Study Room, reading, writing and talking with fellow artists: Season Butler, Alexandrina Hemsley, Joseph Morgan Schofield and Sara Sassanelli. From these discussions, they created hereafter, a collection of 6 texts borrowing from fiction, poetry, essay and manifesto. Designed by Ben Normanton.

We have been thinking about: non-linear time, parallel universes, speculative performance, ASMR, tarot, divination, fabulation, abolitionisms, grey zones, rewritten histories, remembered futures, coping mechanisms, partially fleshed-out plans, collective dreaming, ‘progress’, best-case scenarios, and the endless tension between critiquing and proposing alternatives.

Book Launch and Panel Discussion  |  1 May 19 @ Live Art Development Agency

What version of the future do artists want? What are the options on the table? What role might artistic practice take in steering, shaping or disrupting our current visions of the future?

On Wednesday 1st May 2019, Es Morgan and Charlie Ashwell hosted a roundtable discussion creating space for radical speculation and reimagining of the future, at LADA. The six artists who contributed to hereafter gave a provocation reflecting on and diverging from their written text, and Es and Charlie facilitated an open conversation with 25 participants.

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This project has emerged from Charlie and Es’ research during the making of ‘Mum, I’m in the fourth dimension, see! - a choreographic work which attempts to channel and process a multitude of tensions, crises and precarious utopias.

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