Beyond Dystopia: How Art Can Help Us Imagine a Better Future

Tribeca Talks

| 0 MINUTES

Depictions of the future are often used as warnings about paths we shouldn’t take. But it’s possible that too much dystopia could result in a failure of imagination about something better. What responsibility – and opportunity – does the creative community have to help the public think about better tomorrows? Futurist Ari Wallach will talk with eerily prescient novelist Jennifer Egan, documentarian Fisher Stevens and filmmaker JD Dillard about getting beyond dystopia.

Panelists

JD Dillard

J.D. Dillard has established himself as a director and writer to watch, with an extraordinary ability to captivate audiences through authentic yet innovative storytelling. Dillard’s next big screen endeavor is the highly-anticipated historical war epic Devotion, which Sony Pictures will release domestically in October 2022. The film stars Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell as Jesse Brown and Tom Hudner, a pair of U.S. Navy pilots who risked their lives during the Korean War and became some of the Navy’s most celebrated wingmen. Dillard directs the deeply personal feature from a script written by Jake Crane and Jonathan Stewart, based on the book by Adam Makos.

Kathryn Murdoch

Kathryn Murdoch is the Co-founder and President of the Quadrivium Foundation, which supports powerful, evidence-based solutions for critical societal problems. Kathryn serves on the boards of Unite America, the Climate Leadership Council, SciLine, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Ari Wallach

Ari Wallach is a futurist and the founder and Executive Director of Longpath Labs. He is the author of the forthcoming (August 16) book by Harper Collins, Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs. As adjunct associate professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, he lectured on innovation, AI, and the futures of public policy. Wallach’s TED talk on the Longpath mindset has been viewed 2.6 million times and translated into 21 languages. He has written for outlets like the BBC and Wired, ran Fast Company magazine’s “FactCo Futures with Ari Wallach,” and has been featured in The New Times, CNBC, CNN, Vox, and more. He has served as an advisor to the US State Department, United Nations and numerous organizations including the RacialEquity2030 Challenge, the Gettysburg Project and Politico's Long Game Forum. More at www.longpath.org

Fisher Stevens

Fisher Stevens has been in the entertainment business for almost 40 years. His versatility in the industry is evident from his wide range of credits, from acting to directing to producing, from feature film to documentary, and from television to theater. In 2010, he won the Academy Award for the documentary The Cove. Political and environmental activism has been a main focus of his work.

Jennifer Egan

Jennifer Egan is the author of six previous books of fiction: Manhattan Beach, winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction; A Visit from the Goon Squad, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; The Keep; the story collection Emerald City; Look at Me, a National Book Award Finalist; and The Invisible Circus. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Granta, McSweeney’s, and The New York Times Magazine. Her website is JenniferEgan.com