Thriving, Abundant, Joyful Presents and Futures

Thriving, Abundant, Joyful Presents and Futures

Pennant Place

Submissions due May 20th

Exhibition ~August/September 2024

Theme 

Pennant Place is looking for Video Art (in any form) that deals with thriving, prosperous, abundant, joyful, and resilient presents and futures.

What is the difference between surviving and thriving? What are some of the tools, technologies, and systems that can get you/us from enduring to flourishing? What are possibilities within neurodivergence and disability for knowing more ways of abundant, joy-filled life? How can we build resilience into communities and individuals to tackle whatever political realities and climate catastrophes yet to come? 

Survivance is a concept articulated by Anishinaabe cultural theorist Gerald Vizenor 1 that goes beyond mere survival into actively creating thriving communities that are also integral to the world outside of their communities 2–4. Vizenor says survivance “[...]is an active sense of presence over absence, deracination, and oblivion; survivance is the continuance of stories…” 5. It is active survival, pushing away victimhood and pushing towards a thriving future without passing the trauma of colonialism onto future generations. Not forgetting it, but teaching history without the trauma continuing 6.

Solarpunk is one tool for working on many of the questions posed here. It looks for possibilities that are both global and local, solutions small and big, and everything in between; one magic fix to create a better world is antithetical to Solarpunk. Instead, it conceives and enacts a million solutions to these problems7, the right tool for the right situation.