Unfurling Futures

Background: This research is concerned with exploring how public/relational creative practices can impact the social/collective imaginary exploring a multiplicity of futures in public space. Underpinned by Rosi Braidotti’s thinking on the posthuman, this research contributes to my ongoing project to conceive an affirmative creative cartography of the present as a kind of future-casting. British geographer Doreen Massey defines ‘space’ as; ‘the sphere of coexistence of a multiplicity of trajectories… always and ever open, constantly in a process of being made.’ She affirms that ‘the way we think about space matters.’ (Massey 2005:9) This is the beginning of a series of works that explore the mattering of space and the space of mattering. Contribution: The 10th Anniversary of the Gertrude Street Projection Festival invited artists to create works for and of the future. For ten days over the winter of 2017, I curated 38 artists' projection based works, on building facades and in business windows along the length of Gertrude Street in Fitzroy Melbourne as a time capsule exploring the social, political and environmental epoch of our times. The 10 day festival drew audiences from across Melbourne, an estimated 60 000 people experienced the work. Significance: This iteration of the GSPF was commissioned by the Centre for Projection Art an independent not for profit arts organization committed to artist engaging with projection art. The Centre for Projection Art and the festival are supported through Creative Victoria and the City of Yarra Arts Grants. Each year the festival offers new ways of understanding and reimagining our everyday environments through creative practice. Select works from the 2017 festival were explored in a publication written by Tim Edensor & Shanti Sumartojo (2018) for GeoHumanities.