Minifesto

Manifest Dystopia is a creative prompt to stimulate an experiential conversation around our individual and collective experience of a system failing, as well as our role and responsibilities in perpetuating, accelerating or correcting it. During the last 3 years we saw cracks in the structures that both sustain and oppress us. We want to see what comes from artists pressing fingers into that crumbling brick and mortar, and having a hand in building the hereafter.

The title Manifest Dystopia is a play on words, remixing our own dark history with fantasy and asking artists to ponder the questions, how did we get here, how we can change course and, where do we go from here?

“Dystopia” is defined as a fictional world where “warlords and demagogues take over, some people forget that all people are people, enemies are created, vilified and dehumanized, minorities are persecuted, and human rights as such are shoved to the wall.”¹ We do not live in a dystopia, as dystopias are fictional by definition, but our culture does exhibit certain dystopian characteristics that should be scrutinized and serve as stark warnings.

Art is a catalyst for change, so we invite artists to participate in this visual discussion by submitting artworks which are hopeful but also apocalyptic, dystopian, solar punk, bleak, abstract, relevant, representational, reverent, observational, as well as caricatures, insights, reflections, visions, predictions, suggestions, celebrations, prescriptions, prophecies and more!