Toward Emergent Futures brings together work by four artists who consider the future from distinct vantage points, approaching it as a space shaped by the patterns of the present. Their practices respond to a moment marked by global instability, climate disruption, and widening social inequities, conditions that often obscure a clear sense of promise for tomorrow. 

Judy Anderson uses copper jingles and moose hide to reflect on how tradition can be carried forward even as it evolves, and centres on the transformative potential of Indigenous presence within institutional spaces. Christina Battle’s projects are rooted in the present and recent past, looking toward the not-so-distant future. She considers how saving seeds can reshape systems of exchange and ecological wellbeing, and creates animated GIFs to reflect on how news cycles frame and reframe our understanding of what lies ahead. Collaborators Naomi Okabe and Emily Pelstring project into the distant future, casting themselves as “Technomystics” in a post-collapse era research lab, where ecological grief is translated into data and preserved for later processing.

Across the exhibition, their works acknowledge the gravity of current realities while also proposing that the future remains open to revision, shaped by practices that support communities and invite speculation about what could be.  

Artwork courtesy of the artists. Exhibition documentation by LF Documentation.