What does it take to create something that lasts 100 years? What does it mean to be a good ancestor? How do we write—and live—for descendants we may never meet?
Future Library challenges our concept of time. In 2014, one thousand trees were planted in a forest outside of Oslo. Each year, an author is invited to write a text. Contributing authors and poets have included Margaret Atwood, Han Kang, Ocean Vuong, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Amitav Ghosh, among others. After 100 years, the trees will be felled to make paper on which to print these texts. Until then, no one may read them.
In this talk, curator Anne Beate Hovind shares the story of the Future Library and what it takes to commission art for a century-long project. With two decades of experience in culture and urban development, Hovind commissions art in public spaces as meaningful actions of positive disruptions and radical hope.
