COP28 Step Into 2030
Staged in a warehouse outside the United Nations COP28 convening, this immersive exhibit set the scene in three rooms from the future: A kitchen in Lima Peru, a public square in Jakarta Indonesia, and an executive office in Dubai. In each space, visitors encountered decor and artifacts bringing to life possible futures in 2030—the year that countries are anchoring on for the Paris Agreements to reduce their emissions. The space focused on mundane, nearly uncanny everyday objects: A graffitied poster advertising the local regenerative economy. A public notice of a rewilded corridor. ‘Nature’ on the board of directors in the form of a whale due to AI decoding multispecies communication. Obituaries, newspapers, paystubs kitchen appliances, a book on the history of How We Got Here. Each artifact had a small card describing the trends that were extrapolated to arrive at the future and what it might take to navigate the possibility. Hundreds of attendees visited the space to tour and discuss, including environmental leaders like Sylvia Earle, 8 creative agencies, and heads of major NGOs and corporations.
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Lima, Jakarta, Dubai
We built three areas of a warehouse: An office in Dubai, a home in Lima, a public square in Jakarta. All set in 2030, for the public to walk through and immerse in, and populated with objects. The exhibit offered takeaway brochures sharing context on objects and the foresight work behind them, and leaving questions for participants to reflect on related to each cultural/economic trend and how it might impact their lives and work in 2030.
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The Uncanny Mundane
World building was done through small minutia. A critical barrier to renewable decarbonized infrastructure development is the idea of "not in my backyard" meaning that residents of critical areas do not wish to have unsightly wind turbines and solar panels etc. I imagined a future where infrastructure was either so beautified or so glorified that it appeared on national currency, in this case the Indonesian currency at a night market. I left it staged on a table next to bowls and condiments to make it feel lived in.
