Fast Forward
Five artists share their dreams
for a regenerative world
“Little Sun’s Fast Forward film series offers a vital new space for artists to reimagine the future.”
Olafur Eliasson, Artist and Founder of Little Sun
Fast Forward is a series of short films that explore five artists’ dreams for a regenerative world. Featuring over 300 global voices, the films have been made by artists from Ethiopia, Senegal, and the United States.
The series explores a future that is fair and regenerative, realized through global collaboration and the centering of historically marginalized groups. It intends to reframe the prevailing political rhetoric on climate change, grounding the narrative in the lived experience and voice of global citizens. Our aim is that these artworks help to turn an often data-driven and technically heavy conversation surrounding the global energy crisis into an open, intimate dialogue, creating accessible stories and new motivation for global change.
Commissioned and produced by Little Sun, the project has been stewarded by an advisory board composed of global leaders in climate and art. The films will form the foundation of an experimental curriculum for 16-18 year olds that will roll out in Ethiopia, Senegal, and the United States in Autumn 2021. The series is also available to view on digital video channel NOWNESS.
The Films
GHOST OF A DREAM
Aligned by the Sun
Aligned by the Sun is a film compiled of videos of the sunset captured by artists in over 200 countries and autonomous area in the world. Read More
The Artists
About Ghost of a Dream
Ghost of a Dream is the collaborative of artists Adam Eckstrom and Lauren Was. They make work about people’s hopes and dreams using the ephemera that is created trying to attain them. Ghost of a Dream has received grants from the Rauschenberg Foundation and the Joan Mitchell Foundation and was a 2018 Facebook Artist in Residence.
About Selly Raby Kane
Selly Raby Kane is an artist and fashion designer based in Dakar. Her work is a tribute to Senegalese mythology and Dakar’s hidden stories. In 2017 Kane was appointed the first external Creative Director of Design Indaba, and in 2019 Time Magazine named her a Next Generation Leader. Her film Tang Jër recently won the Grand National Prize at Dakar Court Film Festival.
About Naod Lemma
Naod Lemma is a photographer and filmmaker based in Addis Ababa. His works depict a society undergoing deep transformation by capturing ordinary, almost invisible details of his city and the way people inhabit it. Lemma has several times exhibited at Addis Foto Fest, and his work recently has appeared alongside Aida Muluneh’s photography in the exhibition Homebound at The Africa Institute, UAE.
About Jessica Segall
Jessica Segall is a video artist, performer, and sculptor from Brooklyn. Hostile and threatened landscapes are sites for her work, where she plays with both the risk of engaging with the environment and the vulnerability of the environment itself. Segall has received grants from the Pollock Krasner Foundation and New York Foundation for the Arts and attended residencies at MacDowell and Skowhegan.
About Ezra Wube
Ezra Wube is a mixed-media artist raised in Ethiopia and currently living and working in Brooklyn. Wube’s work references the notion of past and present, the constant changing of place, and the dialogical tensions between ‘here’ and ‘there.’ Wube is a veteran of Times Square’s Midnight Moment series, and his exhibition City Stories was recently on view at The High Line, NYC.
The Advisors
Jaime Yaya Barry
Director of Environmental Projects, Le Korsa
Based in Senegal, Jaime Yaya Barry is currently Director of Environmental Projects for Le Korsa, an NGO that works with doctors, teachers, community leaders, artists, and students to improve human lives. Previously, he worked as a journalist across West Africa, covering migration, social and political issues, and climate change for The New York Times, as well as the Ebola outbreak for PBS, BBC, and Vice. Barry was born in Sierra Leone and spent much of his childhood in refugee camps in Guinea during the civil war in his home country. He studied photojournalism at the Autonomous University in Barcelona, Spain.
Olafur Eliasson
Artist and Co-Founder of Little Sun
Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist who works with sculpture, painting, photography, film, installation, and digital media. Eliasson is internationally-renowned for his public installations that challenge the way we perceive and co-create our environments. In 2019, Eliasson was named UNDP Goodwill Ambassador for climate action and the sustainable development goals. He is the Co-Founder of Little Sun.
Marie Helene Pereira
Director of Programmes, RAW Material Company
Marie Hélène Pereira is Director of Programmes at RAW Material Company where she has organized exhibitions and related discursive programs including “We face forward: Art from West Africa Today” Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; ICI Curatorial Hub at TEMP, New York; The 9th Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai; MARKER Art Dubai (2013); and the Little Sun project in Senegal (2014-2015). Pereira was a co-Curator of “Canine Wisdom for the Barking Dog” at the 13th edition of Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African art (2018). She has a strong interest in politics of identity and histories of migration.
N. Bird Runningwater
Director of Indigenous Program and DEI, Sundance Institute
N. Bird Runningwater belongs to the Cheyenne and Mescalero Apache Tribes, and serves as the Director of Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program and the Institute’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work organization-wide. Under Runningwater’s tenure 140 Indigenous filmmakers have been supported through Sundance Artists Programs and more than 110 Indigenous-made films have been curated by Runningwater to premiere at Sundance Film Festival. In Time Magazine’s 2019 Optimist Issue Runningwater was listed among “12 Leaders Who Are Shaping the Next Generation of Artists”. Runningwater was invited to join the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 2019. He is currently serving as a Co-Executive Producer on the TV show “Sovereign” currently in development with Ava DuVernay.
Seble Samuel
Global Cities Campaign Lead, The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative
Seble Samuel is an Ethiopian-Canadian geographer and climate justice advocate based in Addis Ababa. Her experience spans East Africa, Latin America and Canada, working with international institutions and civil society organizations on climate justice, multimedia communications and socio-ecological resilience. She is a co-founder of Menged Le Sew – Ethiopia’s open streets movement, a mentor for Africa’s inaugural Women4Climate Mentorship Program in Addis Ababa, and the Sustainability and Environment Lead of the Global Shapers Addis Ababa Hub. Seble holds a BA in Geography and Anthropology from McGill University and an MSc in Environmental Change and Management from the University of Oxford.
Caroline Saunders
Chief of Staff, Grist
Caroline Saunders is the chief of staff at Grist, the nonprofit media organization covering climate change and the environment. She is driven by a love of science communications, good food, and the urgency of building climate resilience in our cities, food systems, and lives. In 2018, Saunders co-authored Craft Beef, a book exploring the growing movement of farmers, butchers, and chefs working to make steak more sustainable and delicious. A graduate of Vanderbilt University, Caroline lives in Seattle, WA, USA.
Rakeb Sile
Founder, Addis Fine Art
In 2016, Rakeb Sile co-founded Addis Fine Art with Mesai Haileleul, creating the first white-cube gallery space for modern and contemporary art in Ethiopia. The gallery has spaces in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and London, and has participated in fairs in Africa and beyond, among them ART X Lagos, Frieze New York, Art Dubai and the Armory Show. Sile was recently chosen as one of Apollo Magazine’s 40 Under 40 Africa in 2020, a project dedicated to 40 of the most influential and talented people in the art world born or based in Africa.
Adam Vaughan
Chief Reporter, New Scientist
Adam Vaughan is chief reporter at New Scientist magazine. He has been a journalist for two decades, covering climate change and other environmental issues, as well as energy and technology. Previously he was environment editor and energy correspondent at The Guardian, where he covered the 2015 Paris climate summit and the rapid energy transition since then.
Lauraberth Lima
Cultural Consultant
Lauraberth Lima is the Curriculum Consultant for Fast Forward. Lima is a cultural consultant with over 10 years of experience in education and community engagement in cultural institutions. She brings a social justice lens to consulting through interdisciplinary expertise in intergenerational engagement, health equity, youth development, early childhood education, museum and art education, and programming for LGBTQ2SIA+/gender expansive communities. Lima served as Director of Education for No Longer Empty, Education Manager for Museum of the City of New York, is a founding member of The Love Yourself Project, NYC, and a member of The Committee to Empower Voices for Healing and Equity (NYC DCLA).
The Curriculum
The Fast Forward curriculum is a series of five one-hour lesson plans that introduce the films to 16-18 year-old students. Designed for educators in classrooms around the world, each lesson plan includes a series of engaging discussion questions and activities that use the Fast Forward films as an entry point to conversations about climate change, climate justice, and the role of artists in shaping our collective future. The Fast Forward curriculum was conceived by Lauraberth Lima, a cultural consultant with over 10 years of experience in education and community engagement.
The Fast Forward curriculum is available open-source for anyone who would like to use it. Please find the downloadable lesson plans and subtitled films in English, French, and Wolof below.
English
Lesson 1: Ghost of a Dream
Lesson 2: Naod Lemma
Lesson 3: Selly Raby Kane
Lesson 4: Jessica Segall
Lesson 5: Ezra Wube
Subtitled Films
French
Lesson 1: Ghost of a Dream
Lesson 2: Naod Lemma
Lesson 3: Selly Raby Kane
Lesson 4: Jessica Segall
Lesson 5: Ezra Wube
Subtitled Films
Wolof
Lesson 1: Ghost of a Dream
Lesson 2: Naod Lemma
Lesson 3: Selly Raby Kane
Lesson 4: Jessica Segall
Lesson 5: Ezra Wube
Subtitled Films
