Global Art Forum 2016

The Future Was ZZZZZZZZ

22 mins 48 secs

A short talk on a long repose. Theologians, activists and poets have told of people who sleep for 300 years and then awaken into a transformed world, as a way to critique the present and imagine the future. From 6th century Syriac eschatology to medieval Islamic futurisms, socialist sci-fi to the 1930s Egyptian theatre, it seems the quickest way to get to the future is to sleep. But will you like it when you get there?

Anna Della Subin is an essayist and a contributing editor at Bidoun. Her work has appeared in the London Review of Books, The New York Times, The White Review, Harper's, and TANK, among other places. Her e-book Not Dead But Sleeping was published by Triple Canopy in January 2016.