HOPE | Words for the Future

Hope: it appeared to Gurur Ertem in the midst of the disruptive political events of 2016, in Turkey. Are there any reasons to be hopeful despite the evidence? What are ways of seeing in the dark? In Hope, cultural sociologist and writer Ertem explores these questions with her strong political and poetic voice. “Hope. I wish there was more of it but reality is an obstruction.” He laughs. “No, I take that back.” The written version of Ogutu Muraya’ s poem ‘Zero’, performed as part of his performance ‘Fractured Memories’, is the artistic gesture he offered as a response to HOPE. It celebrates zero as a space that contains every-thing and at the same time as an empty space from which any-thing could spring.

Words for the Future is a many-voiced series of ten words that point to the possible imaginations of various futures. Ten people from diverse fields of knowledge were asked to propose a word for the future through an essay, while an artist in whose work this particular world seemed to already be latently present, was invited to respond to it. Bringing both perspectives together in one publications, each issue becomes a dialogue around one word.

HOPE is issue #5 in the series Words for the Future, curated and edited by dramaturg Nienke Scholts. (The full series (limited edition) is available through San Serriffe aswell.)