A Laboratory for Transdisciplinary Experimentation
and Collaborative Future-Making
We are a collective of scholars and artists from various fields working on activist, speculative and collaborative projects that reimagine and shape emerging futures. EFC provides an inclusive space for people to map out future-oriented methodologies, ethics, strategies, tactics, and modes of being while working together towards better futures.
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Talking Uncertainty Insights incorporate bite-sized podcasts and textual syntheses collaboratively created by EFC members.
A collaborative, improvisational ethnography focussing on the intimate might give the impression that our interlocutors’ world is limited, whereas they are connected to the broader society, discourses and politics. How can we juggle such an element of scale?
How does ethno-science fiction challenge our notion of temporality?
How is the concept of mnidoo related to the Seven Generation Principle, which states that we must consider the impact of every action we take on the next seven generations?
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We feature scholars, artists and practitioners who are working on collaborative projects that speculate emergent futures in times of radical uncertainty. This series highlights how individuals and communities are staging, designing, performing and transforming futures.
May 28, 2022
In this talk, the speakers speculate upon the anti-assimilationist politics of crip cultural practices within the disability arts sector in northern Turtle Island (Canada). We discuss the ethical and practical complexities of “cripping” our research methodologies and gesturing towards decolonization while collaborating with disability community members.
Learn more...March 16, 2022
In this talk, Dr. Karen Waltorp and other Afghan-Danish members of the ARTlife film collective will discuss and unpack their multimodal filmmaking collaborations within the context of politically charged media ecologies.
Learn more...April 30, 2021
This talk features Prabhat Kumar who has been building holistic models to establish farmer-led institutions, foster sustainable livelihoods, reduce the carbon footprint and provide nutritional security to farmers in Bihar, India. We reflect on the politics and imaginaries of these community-led programs and partnerships, in light of the ongoing farmers' protests in the country.
Learn more...December 17, 2020
In this special event, Dr. Johannes Sjöberg will be premiering his new ethno science fiction film ‘Call Me Back’ (2020), followed by a talk on exploring uncertain environmental futures through creative and collaborative practice. We will explore how projective improvisation in ethnographic film could contribute to the way we relate to scientific predictions of the future.
Learn more...September 30, 2020
What does a bird actually see when it is part of a large flock? During these times of radical uncertainty, continuing threats of colonialism, capitalism and climate genocide, Dr. Dolleen Manning discussed what we can learn from wading into subtle mnidoo regions to collaboratively imagine new futures and formations.
Learn more...July 15, 2020
In her talk, Dr. Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston tracked the feeling of awkwardness she experienced in an imaginative ethnography project conducted in collaboration with Randia, a Polish Romani woman. She discussed her attempt to re-envision anthropology as an engaged, collaborative and interventionist practice.
Learn more...We periodically share news about EFC members’ performances, podcasts, workshops, publications, presentations, events and other activities. Read the latest news here.
Festival Director, Freiburger Filmforum; Kommunales Kino Freiburg; University College Freiburg
EFC is collaborating with Freiburger FIlmforum - Festival of Transcultural Cinema to co-curate "Filming Futures" section in their 20th festival edition (May 11 - 21, 2023). Submit your films and audio, visual and digital outputs that deal with futures, utopian/dystopian imaginations, our understanding of time and related topics.
PhD Candidate & Vanier Scholar, Theatre & Performance Studies, York University
Rajat Nayyar, Jared Epp, Rana El Kadi and Karen Waltorp invite you to submit an abstract for EFC's panel 'Imagining Differently: Challenging Neoliberal Media Ecologies in Futures Visual Anthropology' at the upcoming Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) Film Festival's online conference to be held between March 6 and 10, 2023.
Associate Professor, Theatre & Performance Studies, York University
Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston and Mark Auslander invite you all to the book launch event for In Search of Lost Futures: Anthropological Explorations in Multimodality, Deep Interdisciplinarity, and Autoethnography (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021) on 2 February 2022 – 11:30am to 1:30pm EST.
Artist and Teacher
Elsa Robinson's exhibition, Sankofa, engages with feminist art, Afrofuturism and Afrosurrealism. It will be held at Latitude 53 between June 18 and September 25, 2021.
All content on Emergent Futures CoLab’s website and social media is copyrighted. You can use our content for non-commercial, artistic or academic purposes with full credits to EFC and its member(s), and by citing our project wherever appropriate. When referring to our recorded online talks, please use the citation(s) available below each talk.
Emergent Futures CoLab is a transnational collective that was co-founded in Toronto, Canada and inspired immensely by Indigenous scholars and artists. We acknowledge that the area known as Tkaronto is the unceded traditional territory of the Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Huron-Wendat, the Métis, and most currently, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. This territory was the subject of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. Tkaronto is now home to many Indigenous Peoples from across Turtle Island, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this territory.
In the spirit of equity and inclusion, if we can improve on this statement, please contact us.
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