THE SOCIETY FOR SPECULATION PRESENTS: The World Ahead – An Interactive Presentation

We’re all tempted, seduced by the question: what will happen next? Join artist Rachel Simmons and writer Chrissy Kolaya for a presentation on The World Ahead, their collaborative artists’ book project about prediction, fortune-telling and other ways of guessing the future! As part of this talk, Simmons and Kolaya will share samples from this three-book series in progress and discuss the inspiration, process, and collaboration. They will also invite the audience to participate in an interactive prediction game. This program is in connection with the exhibition Critical Reading: Book Arts in Dialogue with the Collection, which is co-curated by Simmons. The World Ahead is a found text and collage series of artists’ books using text from the Economist magazine’s The World Ahead issue, described by its editors as a “guide to the coming year,” including “future gazing analysis, predictions and speculation.” This series of experimental artist’s books is an attempt to challenge the idea that we can ever meaningfully predict or make sense and order out of an uncertain future. This project has been awarded support from the University of Central Florida’s Women and Gender Studies Program’s Gloria Anzaldúa Research Excellence Award.