IS THE FUTURE A RISK MASQUERADING AS A PROMISE?

Nikita Dhawan, Professor of Political Theory (TU Dresden), in the context of the OPEN SPACE of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Nikita Dhawan is Professor of Political Theory at TU Dresden. One of her enduring focal points of work has been to explore the historical, economic, socio-political and cultural entanglements between Europe and the postcolonial world. The aim is to understand fundamental ethical and epistemological questions of political and social inequality, intersectionality and diversity, (women’s) human rights, gender violence, religion and secularism, democracy, cosmopolitanism, transnational (gender) justice, migration and globalization. Furthermore her recent research also focuses on the relation between states, civil society and subaltern groups with regard to questions of citizenship, political agency and social vulnerability.

ARCHIVE OF THE FUTURES:
The Archive of the Futures is a video archive that gathers the voices of scientists, activists and artists and forms a kind of open archive for the questions and challenges that concern us in the times of the Anthropocene.
The climate crisis and its life-threatening consequences, the excessive waste of resources, the legacy of colonialism, and growing social and economic inequality pose challenges to humanity. How can we confront these? What does it mean to work for a livable future in these times? How can we think and create a fair and livable future? Is the future possible and for whom or what?
The starting point for the video statements are questions that the participants most urgently ask themselves with regard to the future. The questions are intended to provide food for thought about what should be said, questioned and done in the Anthropocene - and about what the future asks us to think.

Conception and realization of the Archive of the Futures: Fiona Schrading and Theresa Dagge.