EXPERIMENTAL TIMES

DISPATCHES FROM THE FUTURE

Dispatches from the Future are generated during the Assembly for the Future series.

Created by our future-building participants, Moderators, First Speakers, Respondents and Assembly Artists, they share new versions of future worlds produced through a process of deep, collective reflection, witnessing and imagination. They serve as a record of the process and a new imaginary.

The Dispatches take many forms including prose, sketch, poetry, graphic story and essay.

To view the piece at THE THINGS WE DID NEXT website click here >>>

Alternatively the extract text is below.

Summer Issue, November 2029

Editorial

Jen Rae

 We live in experimental times. 

We are publishing this Special Edition to celebrate nearly a decade of incredible feats of courage and healing. Some would argue that the Covid-19 pandemic in Australia probably saved our country from ruin and from becoming the world’s largest solar farm. Experimental Times Editorial Staff are aligned with this thinking. In this Special Edition, we have compiled a collection of stories, highlighting how far we have come as a nation since then, and to inspirationally remind us that we have more purposeful work to do to dismantle over 240 years of ecological degradation and colonial oppression.

I am often reminded of a cartoon published in The Guardian in 2020 (I wish I had saved it). The cartoon depicts a personified earth staring down at a group of politicians. The humans are crying out ‘We can’t shut down the economy! We can’t end fossil fuels…etc’. In response, earth says ‘Here’s a pandemic, try’. Throughout Covid-19 crisis, we learned that change can come quickly where there is willpower and ingenuity…and, it can come in once unimaginable forms.

The forced stillness that the Covid-19 crisis brought, to the most privileged amongst us, was the recognition that our faulty human systems could no longer be upheld. We lost livelihoods and our secure footings. Many aspects of our lives that mattered, no longer mattered. At some point, ‘normal’, in its original form, became unrecognisable especially in the second wave where loss of lives mounted and fear set in. Sourdough cultures died. Vegetable patches wilted. We retreated and in the depths of grief, we wept.

We experienced what is now recognised as ‘anticipatory grief’, a deep-felt anxiety about our uncertain futures and the collective loss of normalcy. When we could no longer distract or medicate ourselves, our captivity pushed us toward self-reflection where we questioned institutional dependency, our comforts, conveniences and complicity. What more were we prepared to give up? And, what were we willing to fight for? Especially in relation to our well-being, kinship and our future generations.

Egos shed.

Humility rose. 

We yearned for meaning to transcend the suffering.

We have heard countless stories of hyperlocal community mobilisations around water protection and food systems, rapid technological innovations to advance inclusive communications, and strategies of refusal against dinosaurian institutions and disaster capitalists. On page 8, artists Mauri Sha and Carolyn Ames share a story of trauma and recovery by taking us on a journey around the country with their incredibly successful community-led, land steward project, Gigatonnes. To date, everyday Australian ‘Protectionists’ have successfully reforested nearly 0.9 billion hectares since starting along the Merri Creek in 2021. The Gigatonnes Ecological Charter passed in 2027 protects these lands from any form of natural resource extraction, pollution or financial gains. This project leaves a legacy that will endure beyond lifetimes.

As months passed attempting to contain Covid-19 outbreaks, we began to grasp the scope of suffering beyond our own to those in other communities. We could no longer look away at the injustices. From the sudden lockdown of the Melbourne housing estates to the long food relief lines of stranded international students, everyday people mobilised and acted. On page 16, Aaden Farah tells the story of two disparate communities coming together during Covid-19 in solidarity and mutual aid support. Through mobilised rent and debt strikes, they successfully decommissioned high rise public and insecure student housing in Australia, and helped transition the University of Melbourne into an equitable public knowledge research and learning institute with a focus on social inclusion, public health and community resilience.

The pandemic woke us from sleepwalking into extinction and at the same time made us face our mortality. A collective awareness mounted that the climate emergency was bearing down on us. In doing so, our existential crises made way for existential choice. Through the pandemic, those of us who lagged behind climate change attentiveness quickly learned to trust scientists and act with purpose. There was an unspoken acknowledgement that we are the last generation to halt extinction and in doing so, hopefully secure a legacy for future generations. On page 24, activist Alice L. Hannan’s article Secure enough to be brave talks about how platforms of public value, normally privileged for the dominant classes, were handed over to children to have a voice in advocacy and decision-making around issues directly affecting future generations. In 2026, the Children’s Right to Vote Act was won permitting young people over the age of 15 to vote. Prime Minister Lidia Thorpe’s momentous speech on the day accompanies the article, translated in English.

The centre spread Acts of Refusal/Acts of Mutuality celebrates the moments of solidarity between Aboriginal communities, leaders and allies leading to the signing of the Aboriginal Treaty Act of 2024. Authors Claire G. Coleman and Alexis Wright discuss how the Treaty helps us all to reconceptualise our ways of living and learning in relation to the land through ceremony, land-based ethics, song and language. The Treaty enables the collectivisation of skills and resources to dismantle settler ecologies and halt the colonisation of the future.

We honour the bravery and are proud to bring this edition to you.

In solidarity,

Jen Rae and the editorial team 

Future generated by Jess, Jacqueline, Gabrielle, Kata and Jen