Cross a shaky bridge between the past and the future. Step into a town square in a European coastal city 20 or 30 years in the future. Hear the seagulls and a brass band somewhere in the distance. Peek into an ocean recovery lab where scientists are at work salvaging our seas.
From there, step into a bar and read a newspaper or hear conversations and learn how, in this future, as global water levels rise, migrants are not just the poor: they are the rich whose homes have been lost to the waves.
We wanted to make the future something we could talk about and also experience
For the next few months, St Joseph the Worker Centre, in Birkirkara has been transformed into Cabinet of Futures, an art installation by Austrian group Time’s Up, under the auspices of Valletta 2018, exploring how changes in our world – environmental, social and economic – will impact day-to-day life.
“We wanted to make the future something we could talk about and also experience,” Tim Boykett, from Time’s Up, told the Times of Malta.
“On one level, it’s a bit dystopian: you come in and see the rising seas and the water made toxic. But, on another level, it’s hopeful: we also see how society is reorganising.”
According to Mr Boykett, the concept behind the imagining of the future, developed alongside futurists, experts and everyday citizens, is that, seen from the future, “change was our only chance”.
“It is an optimistic view that, looking back from the future, we were able to make those changes,” he said.
“And also the humour about ourselves, about how people may one day wonder what we were thinking. And, most importantly, that no matter what happens, we will still be falling in love and having ambitions and telling stories,” he said.