Ensemble

A second alternative future is ‘Collapse’ from one cause or another (or their combination) and either to extinction or to a ‘lower’ stage of ‘development’ than currently. […] It should be emphasised that the ‘Collapse’ future is not and should not be portrayed as a ‘worst case scenario’. Many people welcome the end of the ‘economic rat-race’ and yearn for a simpler lifestyle. Moreover, in every ‘disaster’ there are ‘winners’ as well as ‘losers’. (Jim Dator, Alternative Futures at the Manoa School , 2009.)

The second of the ‘four futures’ could be the most titillating. Who doesn’t secretly like to witness disaster and collapse – at a safe distance, in an art museum? But rather than offering graphic representations of doomsday scenarios, this segment of the exhibition looks at the ‘before and after’ of collapse, with under-the-skin glimpses of the American psyche that seem to prefigure both 9/11 and Trumpism (Michel Auder), the calm spectacle of nature reclaiming a failed real estate investment in the tropics (Simryn Gill) or a reality where all that was ‘normal’ has evaporated (Center for Postnormal Policy & Futures Studies).