The future: unknown, uncertain, very scary! So pick your fighter, or in this case pick your medium. Painting, sculpting, filmmaking, or one that combines it all: worldbuilding. The future and how we create it is the premise of ACMI’s latest exhibition, The Future & Other Fictions, which uncovers the process of creative worldbuilding and its ability to navigate the turbulent topography of the realities we inhabit.

A heavy dose of dystopian dread feels ingrained into our popular culture diet and extends into the world we live in, as all too often the warnings it holds come to pass. One of the curators and contributing artists, futurist and filmmaker Liam Young, acknowledges that while these cautionary tales can have a paralysing effect, they can also be “productive dystopias” which represent a time capsule of contemporary fears. For example, the state of mass surveillance George Orwell predicted in 1984 was actually about 1948 and the totalitarian trends he saw unfolding across Europe then. These imaginary visions can become crucial roadmaps and blueprints for the future. Co-curated with ACMI’s Amanda Haskard (Gunai/Kurnai) and Chelsey O’ Brien, the exhibition also draws on perspectives of Indigenous futurism, addressing the apocalyptic doom long tied to colonialism, environmental destruction and cultural erasure and the importance of storytelling as a way to reclaim and decolonise the future. Moving from Western canonical science-fiction screen narratives to the voices of Afrofuturism, East Asian, and Pacific and First Nations people, the exhibition highlights the power of speculative storytelling as a tool of resistance and self-determination.

With over 180 works on display that span sets, props, film clips, costumes and original design materials, the show reflects the richness of imagined worlds and the power of curatorial collaboration. The exhibition acknowledges classics such as the 1985 film Back to the Future before presenting alternative visions of the future such as Björk’s 2017 music video ,The Gate, directed by Andrew Thomas Huang, featuring a custom outfit by James Merry and Valentino designer Alessandro Michele, on display. Haskard hopes that these elements, which also include behind-the-scenes footage and concept work, “show the creative process and allow audiences to connect with this in a tangible way.” Further, the bold surrealism and high-tech natural forms of The Gate powerfully reflect Björk’s environmentalism and its emphasis on sustainability and emotional healing.

Björk’s work is one among many pieces that present speculative fiction as a tool of activism and resistance in hope of a better future.

“We are paralysed by these visions of the future that we’ve been exposed to for a long time, particularly on screen,” states Haskard. Curating the show was about “reimagining dystopia, championing and showcasing stories and cultures from underrepresented communities and First Nations communities. If you can see yourself and your stories in the future, that’s a spark, a tangible moment.”

“It is possible for worldbuilding to incite both wonder and fear, melancholy and anxiety alongside excitement and joy. Storytelling naturally holds the tools to track stress and entropy to the other side, exemplified in Freytag’s Pyramid: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution.”

The Afrofuturist work of Olalekan Jeyifous reimagines dystopias as rewilded landscapes through Shanty Megastructures, 2015, an architectural intervention which revolves around resourceful characters and communities that flip perceptions of the impoverished on their head. Dalit and Tamil artist Osheen Siva imagines decolonised dreamscapes strongly influenced by South Indian motifs, mythologies and Tamilian architecture—liberated utopian futures filled with mutants and monsters basking in queer feminist power. Elsewhere, NEOMAD, a comic series created by over 40 First Nations young people in the Ieramugadu community together with illustrator Stu Campbell, depicts a group of young, tech-savvy heroes who adventure through the Pilbara. The latter exemplifies the power of cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural collaboration as a way to repair exploitative histories as opposed to burdening underrepresented groups with added labour for pains they have already suffered.

“The show is a rally cry to say that we desperately need hopeful futures and here are the various ways that people have constructed futures across time in film, games, animation, music videos,” Young says. “We need to be creating and telling multiple stories about our future and we need to be empowering the public to tell their own stories about the futures that they want.” By showcasing alternative futures that do not normally appear in the canon of science fiction, the exhibition seeks to challenge the audience’s fear of what lies ahead. It also inspires more radical, polyvocal approaches to creating the world that we want to live in.

Birth of Dawn (2024), is a new film by Queensland-based artist and DJ Hannah Brontë working with dancers on Country. It is rooted in an exploration of nature and femininity as the ultimate forms of science fiction. In the work, a pregnant woman appears alongside nature, a revered carrier of ancient knowledge and technology.

Liam Young and Ngarrindjeri, Narungga, Kaurna and Noongar actress Natasha Wanganeen (The Rabbit Proof Fence) proffer a radically hopeful post-fossil fuel Australia in After the End (2024). The nation is reborn without its historic extraction of oil, gas and minerals. Instead, the colonised landscape is rehabilitated and filled with wildflowers and an Indigenous space industry has created an orbital system of ancestral knowledge in place of the current tech ecosystem.

Yet, does the pendulum of future storytelling swing only to extremes of apocalyptic dread or radical optimism? Just as the overconsumption of bleak dystopias may be paralysing and lead to a sense of individual helplessness, is the counter to that not dangerously full of empty promises? Additionally, the push to platform marginalised voices forces them to take on the labour of solving the very problems they have long suffered from.

The tendency of screen culture to flatten human experience persists, millennia of human motivations and its outcomes condensed into palatable cultural tokens.

Although many aspects of contemporary screen culture and onscreen storytelling generate apathy and passivity, the exhibition’s focus on the process and possibilities of storytelling hopes to pave the way for more nuanced worldmaking. “Any viable future is a complex one that is troubling and full of compromise and difficulty,” Young says. “It is hard decisions, sacrifices. I want to hold that in this world in parallel to the wonder.” It is possible for worldbuilding to incite both wonder and fear, melancholy and anxiety alongside excitement and joy. Storytelling naturally holds the tools to track stress and entropy to the other side, exemplified in Freytag’s Pyramid: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution. The worlds that we create ought to be vast and complex enough to reflect the state of our realities.

“Every story we tell shines a light into the dark and shadowy territory of the future,” Young adds. “The more stories we tell, both positive and negative, the more of this landscape gets eliminated and the easier it is to start to understand the possibilities that are ahead of us, to make strategic and informed choices around the next steps to get to where our destination might be.” The curators invite audiences to embark on a journey of worldbuilding, embracing both discomfort and delight in the process of imagining, creating, and sharing the worlds they dare to imagine.

The Future & Other Fictions
ACMI
On now—27 April

This article was originally published in the January/February 2025 print issue of Art Guide Australia.