WE’RE ALL DOOMED - CAN HOPE SURVIVE THE PERMACRISIS?

14:00 - 14:50 Onsdag 18. marts 2026 / 50 min

Why are we more drawn to images of dystopia than to acts of collective hope? Do the stories we tell about the future shape our emerging realities, leading to the creation of the very worlds we fear? Does dystopian ideation risk normalising despair?

Is it right to be filling the heads of our children with visions of a hopeless future? And what would it take to reframe our narratives to show how empathy, imagination, and solidarity can triumph over fear and despair?

This session can only be purchased as part of the full afternoon bundle.

Speakers

Bryan Yazell

Bryan Yazell is an Associate Professor of Anglophone Literature at the University of Southern Denmark and a Senior Fellow at the Danish Institute for Advanced Study. His research explores how storytelling conventions from science fiction shape our imagination of the environment and climate change.

Pierre-Christophe Gam

Pierre-Christophe Gam is a conceptual artist creating immersive installations and participatory worlds that explore imagination as a collective, political force. Founder of TOGUNA WORLD, he engages African and diasporic communities in future-building. Former fellow at the MIT Open Documentary Lab.

Maisha Wester

Maisha is a professor in American Cultural Studies, Black Diaspora Studies, Film Studies and Gothic literature. “I specialize in Black Diasporic Gothic and Horror, racial representation in Gothic Literature and Horror Film, and socio-political uses of Gothic and Horror tropes in discussions about race. In simpler words, I specialize in how fiction and society reduce real people to figures of monstrosity.” Coded Black is a game which teaches the long, horrible, contradictory, and illogical history of anti-Blackness and its nightmarish consequences in the US and UK. It's an experience designed to be difficult—mentally and emotionally. Drawing from primary sources, historical records, and scholarly analysis, Coded Black offers a journey through past atrocities and moments of triumph.

Emma Wall

Emma Wall is a Danish-American filmmaker and child psychiatrist. Trained at Oxford, Columbia, and Cornell, she worked in refugee health and foster care before turning to documentary film. Her debut short GUERRILLA HABEAS premiered at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival and aired on MSNBC.; Emma Wall is a Danish-American filmmaker and child psychiatrist. Trained at Oxford, Columbia, and Cornell, she worked in refugee health and foster care before turning to documentary film. Her debut short GUERRILLA HABEAS premiered at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival and aired on MSNBC.

Sektion

Conference

Tid og sted

18mar2026

Onsdag14:00 - 14:50Kunsthal Charlottenborg

Moderators

Jamie Perera

Jamie Perera is a composer, sound artist and producer from East London. His work is inspired by transformation in the Anthropocene, with themes that juxtapose nature, people, places and timescales. He combines electronic and post-classical production with field recordings, data, and video.

Curator

Mark Atkin

Mark Atkin is the curator of CPH:DOX Inter:Active and Head of Studies of the CPH:LAB, CPH:DOX’s talent development programme, supporting visionaries to push the boundaries of documentary storytelling. He curates Electric Dreams, a programme dedicated to Immersive Storytelling at Adelaide Fringe Festival. He is part of Immersive Arts, the UK’s funding and development programme for immersive artists; and QUAFF, a fund supporting queer artists. He is on the steering committee for the Annwn Prize, the world’s first prize for excellence in Immersive Storytelling. His award-winning immersive and interactive productions have been exhibited at major arts institutions around the world.