Land for indigenous people, decentralisation and radical technological access: poster art from the global artists and activists who are shaping what’s next

Welcome to A Future World – Dazed's network, community, and platform focusing on the intersection of science, technology and pop culture. Throughout April, we're featuring conversations and mission statements from the people paving new pathways for our planet: activists, inventors, fashion pioneers, technologists, AI scientists, and global youth movements, alongside in-depth editorial exploring the new realities for our future world.

Think of a world that emphasises people over profit. Or one where decentralisation forms the core of how society operates. How about a world where young people don’t actually need to be activists anymore? 

Sometimes articulating how the world could work differently can feel like contemplating infinity: where does it begin, what does it look like, when is the work complete? The role of activists and artists around the world in this decade has become all about that articulation of a new future, giving voice to those feelings of injustice that we all share, but sometimes don’t quite know how to talk about. Fuelled by social media and mass protest, words and images have combined like never before to cut through the noise.

For A Future World, we wanted to create a space for bold mission statements from the Dazed network of activists, technologists, and artists – bringing together global image makers and designers with the activists whose perspective they chime with. The response was incredible: time-stamps for where we are at now, and calls to the imagination for how things could be.

ATHIAN AKEC X ADEBAYO BOLAJI

PEOPLE, NOT PROFIT.

I have a vision of the future where we embrace solidarity, care and community at the heart of how we run our society and world. The coronavirus pandemic has exposed how deeply interconnected and interdependent we all are. We have to rebuild with a radical vision for environmental, economic, social and racial justice where we place people and not profit as the top priority. The key to this is building a progressive politics centred around fighting for people you’ve never met. We need to give space to those who have been marginalised, voice to those who have been for too long ignored by the powerful and build a future where we all win. I dream of a future where people can grow up and fulfil their potential without facing poverty, violence or hunger. This isn't some utopian dream but instead something we can and must work relentlessly towards. – Athian Akec, UK youth parliament member and campaigner on knife crime and climate change.

WILSON ORYEMA X JOY YAMUSANGIE

THE FUTURE IS A DECENTRALISED WORLD

A future world will see hundreds upon millions of people leave the central cities they reside (within) in search of new pastures, as we move closer to a decentralised world. – Wilson Oryema, poet and climate campaigner.

MYA ROSE-CRAIG X OKOCHA OBASI

LET INDIGENOUS PEOPLE RECLAIM THEIR LAND AND POWER

I want to live in a world where our planet is prioritised above money and wealth, where we live sustainably without treating natural resources as though they are ours to take. Where we are no longer factory farming or hunting for sport. A world where animal cruelty, that has been normalised for so long, no longer exists.

I want to live in a world where people and their voices are valued equally no matter their background or where they live. Where local and indigenous peoples are finally allowed to live on their ancestral land and regain the power to protect it and the wildlife that lives alongside them. Ultimately bringing to an end the racism and colonialism that still hangs over the environmental movement. 

I want to live in a world where governments and corporations have finally taken responsibility for climate breakdown and have tackled it after decades of misinformation and avoidance as they deforested the planet and exploited countries in the Global South. A world where the people suffering, the minorities, have finally been given a voice to stand up for justice, and no longer have to deal with the world-ending fallout of something they never caused. 

This would be a world that stands for equality, justice, and kindness. – Mya ‘BirdGirl’ Rose-Craig, ornithologist 

(F)EMPOWER X AZEEMA

IF WE COULD SEE THE FUTURE THERE WOULD BE NO JAILS TO BURY OUR SPIRITS

If we could see the future, there would be

many feet marching, on roads high and low

many hands raising our children in holy community matrimony

and many more tilling, feeding their souls and the land.

If we could see the future, there would be

No jails to bury our spirits and unearth them into labor

no cops to intimidate, exterminate and terrorize these working masses

and no carceral profits to be had.

No, you better watch us dance till we’re sore then we rest in the free sand.

If we could see the future, there would be

no imperial capitalist powers

telling us where to go, what to eat, when to work and who to hate.

My kid will tend to the garden of the lady up the block and

your kid will use the harvest to make good food to share.

None of us are on the clock. A sweet smell is in the air. – (F)empower, Miami-based queer feminist collective

JAMIE MARGOLIN X GEORGE JASPER STONE

END THE DEFORESTATION OF THE AMAZON

My vision for a future world is a world in which we have healed from the climate disaster and disaster capitalism. Fossil fuel workers will have transitioned to renewable energy jobs, providing clean and sustainable energy that everyone will have access to. Factory farming and animal agriculture will have been replaced by sustainable farming practices that don't hurt the land or the workers. Deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest will have completely stopped, and there will be efforts to re-forest and help the rainforest and the communities living in it recover from the destruction. The communities most impacted by the climate crisis and environmental destruction will have been given the resources to recover, rebuild, and have justice. 

The fossil fuel industry will have ceased to exist. The animal agriculture and mass factory farming industries will have ceased to exist. The toxic chemical and toxic pesticide industry will have ceased to exist.

My vision of a future world is a world in climate recovery. – Jamie Margolin, founder, Zero Hour movement

VIC BARRETT X SHAMMA BUHAZZA

I WANT A WORLD WHERE YOUNG PEOPLE DON’T HAVE TO BE ACTIVISTS ANYMORE

I see a world with no more protests, no more propositions, no more vigils. Just candles for our ancestors, a time we can rest and breathe. We will walk in the footsteps of all those before us, to breathe air in, and breathe it out.

My mother sits on the beach in Honduras. She spins her finger around the rim of a glass of iced tea. She smells the ocean, feels the tide against her feet. She does not worry, she does not fret. She is safe in her home, her home is safe in her. 

In this future the sun has grown us, the water has hydrated us, the soil has nourished us. Young people aren’t activists anymore, they just enjoy the world their ancestors won for them. – Vic Barrett, Climate Justice Activist

ES DEVLIN X KUMBIRAI MAKUMBE

WE NEED A WORLD OF RADICAL INCLUSIVITY

I imagine a world that universally recognises all things.

A world that completely disregards those troubling distinctions between human, non-human, animal, plant, and object, that have frustrated the evolution of ecological action (particularly in the developed world).

For too long human beings have limited the scope of their thoughts and deeds by seeing themselves as exceptional. Yet, everything is exceptional; and everything is united in its exceptionality. The difference between me and a tree is a difference in degree, not kind. I see myself in a tree; it sees itself in me. 

We must resonate with the more-than-human things in/of the world. Such a world – a world without speciesism or exceptionalism, a world of radical inclusivity and sustainable flourishing – is what I think, and hope, the future looks like.” – Es Devlin, artist and stage designer

ANUNA DE WEVER X STEPHANIE SPECHT

BE BRAVE ENOUGH TO IMAGINE A DIFFERENT WORLD

We need people that are brave enough to imagine a different world, and determined enough to fight for it. 

The only thing that can withhold people from raising their voice and taking power in their own hands, is when they think they have none. Movements around the world have shown that collectively, we are able to change the world. We've dissected the system and fought every part of oppression and exploitation. In order to keep doing this we need to be millions of people around the world, (all) fighting for an entire system change. We need to be brave enough to question everything and re-design a world that is inclusive and respectful towards planet earth and human beings. We have to stop looking at ‘the system’ and ‘the world’ as something outside of us. We are the system. We are the world. And therefore we also have the power to change it. More and more people are realizing this, and they are starting to rebel. Because it’s time to stop the applause and join the march. – Anuna De Wever, Belgian Climate Activist

IDDRIS SANDU X GABRIEL MASSAN

I WANT TO CREATE A WORLD WHERE TECHNOLOGY CREATES MORE ACCESS THAN EXCESS

My vision of the future world is a world where sustainability serves a universal thread that interlaces both digital and physical realms.

A world where technology enables us to create more accessibility than it creates excess. 

To live in an ecosystem that promotes both equality and social equity for all walks of life. 

For the ones creating technology to not be the very ones propagating and enforcing biases within said technologies. 

For us to see humanity as one. 

Perhaps the not so distant meta-verse isn't something that we dreamt up to escape reality.

Perhaps it's something that will show us what reality is all about.

The goodness of it, the realness of it. – Iddris Sandu, Ghanaian architectural technologist