In early 2019 my colleagues Cher Potter (V&A Museum/ University of the Arts, London) and Stuart Candy (Carnegie Mellon School of Design) asked me if I would contribute an article on the theme of ‘Design and Futures’ to the special edition of the Journal of Futures Studies they were guest-editing.

I wrote about SPACECRAFT, the sister project to African Robots, my engagement with street wire artists in Southern Africa, describing it as a Southern Interventionist Art Project. I was attracted to the project as a way of learning more about Futures Studies, a field I’d had some exposure to during my Masters at NYU almost 20 years ago, but knew little about. Futures seemed like an appropriate theme for a project which was futuristic in its content, and which intended to bring about a particular future scenario – a form of design fiction in real life.

I was working on our large-scale collaborative sculpture piece Dubship I – Black Starliner (2019) at the time, which combines a future vision with the recovery of the past – from technology outlined 800 years ago, to early 20th century activism, to late-20th century music – in the context of now. So there was particular resonance with the idea of futures.

The article is titled ‘SPACECRAFT: A Southern Interventionist Art Project’ in Volume 23 no.4 June 2019 of the Journal of Futures Studies. It is freely accessible online at jfsdigital.org ⁣⁣

And check us out on Instagram @spacecraft.africa