The Grand Futurological Congress

We live in a volatile and elusive world where the future is difficult to envision as anything other than crises, disasters, and unprecedented change. Such a situation can make one feel perplexed, powerless, and disheartened. It’s increasingly challenging to think comprehensively. It’s becoming more difficult to make long-term plans and carry them out together. It’s even more challenging to look into the future at all. But literature helps us do that.

To show how we’ve convened a five-night Grand Futurological Congress where ten renowned authors (or groups of authors) will focus on the future. What do they see there? What do they fear and hope to see there? What do they warn us against, and where are they steering us towards? How is the future related to their work and their creative activity? What is literature’s relationship to the future, and what is the future of literature like? Each author will design a 90-minute congress session where anything might happen: speeches, conversations, readings, choral songs, pantomime, performances, dinners, interventions, accelerations, slowdowns, silences, and so on. Because, after all, who knows what the future will hold?

The Grand Futurological Congress takes place at the University of Tartu Library.

Monday, 6th of May
17.00 Tõnis Vilu (Estonia)
19.00 Halyna Kruk (Ukraine)

Tuesday, 7th of May
17.00 Emmi Itäranta (Finland)
19.00 Lydia Sandgren (Sweden)

Wednesday, 8th of May
16.00 Julia von Lucadou (Germany)
18.00 Cory Doctorow (Canada)

Thursday, 9th of May
16.00 Lesley-Ann Brown (Trinidad-USA-Denmark)
18.00 Josh Sawyer (USA)

Friday, 10th of May
16.00 Isaac Rosa (Spain)
18.00 Preiļu konceptuālisti (Latvia)

The project is a part of the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024 main programme.