About

Future Present is an interdisciplinary residency project commissioned by Vitalstatistix for Adhocracy 2014, led by Rosie Dennis, Artistic Director of Urban Theatre Projects (NSW).

Climate change, and how we combat it and adapt, profoundly affects primary industries including agriculture, fisheries and, more broadly, natural resource management. Future Present is taking this global issue and exploring what it means in South Australia, and in real people’s lives. It is doing this through a process of ground-up relationship building and a commencement of conversations, between South Australians who produce and distribute food and a team of South Australian artists.

Ten local artists from a range of artistic disciplines have been selected to work with Rosie, in what is also a masterclass in socially engaged practice and creative research with non-artists.

Over the course of a two week residency in the lead up to Adhocracy 2014, the Future Present team will undertake field trips and research, explore the lives of those who bring food to our tables and develop three presentations that inform, question and inspire.

Future Present is part of a commitment by Vitalstatistix to developing a community of artists in South Australia interested in climate change action. During the residency the team will keep a record of the carbon footprint of the project and seek to offset it. The project has a spirit of initiative at its core – it and its outcomes at Adhocracy are a beginning.

Through the creation of art alongside relationships, Future Present is illuminating climate change through local stories of daily working life, personal-political responsibility, hopefulness and how we make the future in what we do now.