20 Apr 2017

Science fiction film workshop and conference in Ghana

There is no end to what a living world will demand of you.'
-Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower (Earthseed #1)


The year is 2117. Your grandchildren's children play in incapsulated playgrounds. They suck liquid elixirs from tubes made from reconstituted waste. School consists of choicing into sections of knowledge acquisition. You trade a conversation for ethers. The sky is an illusion.

Or maybe not.

Maybe we relearn how we used to live with each other, locally provisioning our wealth and welfare and building resiliency through a networked world of sharing—sharing ideas, sharing solutions, sharing love. Technology can enhance our ability to connect and learn from one another, and in the future, maybe we build a more egalitarian system of wealth distribution by not the historical obsolete methods of extraction of resources and exploitation of people, but of pooling the very best of ourselves as a species—the fragile and vulnerable parts of ourselves too—into a new world: The Fourth Industrial Revolution aka 4IR.

The continent of Africa has been posited for twenty years, at least, to leapfrog beyond the ills and embraces of fossil fuel dependency. Science fiction and its contextually astute Afrofuturism, give credence to an opening into a world that contemporary western film, art and literature are just now beginning to embrace. The world where we actually figure out existence, and existing together.

Does film have the ability to unite us? Architecting Fiction Futures posits this question as the first intersection into a global film platform called The Infinite Seed, which begins with two films intertwined in narrative centered around the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The Seed Vault serves as an impetus for bridging narratives to every part of the planet: Embedded within seeds are the narratives of thousands of years of culture.

During the time of our workshop, short films will be made in connection to The Infinite Seed. Together, participants will explore new ideas, new perspectives, new formats, while also honoring the ancient.

Architecting Fiction Futures will take place October 20th through November 7th, 2017 at Abetenim Art Village, 45 kilometers from Kumasi (the second largest city in Ghana), with a three-day international conference between November 7th to 10th at the College of Art and the Built Environment, Kwame Nkrumah University in Kumasi, Ghana.

Workshop partners include Nka Foundation, School of Critical Engagement, Ghana Think Tank and Afrocyberpunk.

Applications accepted from April 1st to July 31st, 2017.

form.jotform.us/theinfiniteseed/architecting-fiction-futures