Issue 5: Imagining 2043

IMAGINING 2043 is the latest manifestation of Skin Deep. We invited writers, artists and creatives of colour to be bold in their attempts to help us imagine the future. Our aim was to bring together a collection that would “bridge the gap between speculative fiction and social justice.” We wanted to carve out tools and configure resources necessary for strategizing and community organising.

This issue is a collection of imaginings from many corners of this world (and the next) exploring themes such as borders, identity, mothers, monsters, ancestors, time, memory and the uncertainty of the present moment. In many ways, this issue is asking us to take part in a process of speculation: to (re)imagine a future that is birthed out of ancestral memory, grief and rage, but contains, at it’s core, a hope for collective transformation.

Organisers and activists of colour use a range of creative processes to create and envision that which does not yet exist. We are constantly sharing work and ideas, occupying new spaces, and creating new worlds. We may get caught up in the practicalities and the tempting tangibility of short-term, mid-term and long-term goals and forget about the visions and the dreams that inspire us to struggle and agitate. IMAGINING 2043 is our way of reminding ourselves of the organising and motivational power that can come out of those visions; we can exist simultaneously in a present and a future, we can have destruction and rebirth, and we can resist whilst keeping hope.