Race & Climate Change

What is the world of the Shucks?

This portion of the Race and Climate Change Festival engages our future selves through the artifacts we have left behind in the future. A group of future curators has gathered audio, video, and visual remnants of humans’ adaptation after a cataclysmic climate event referred to as “E”. For a time after “E”, our future selves sometimes continued to use the Gregorian calendar our current selves use. But in time, it became clear that time was reset at “E” and after a few generations, calling a year 2021 seemed inadequate and was abandoned.

Soon after “E”, as best the curators can tell, the surviving humans began organizing into shucks. Each shuck developed its own values, customs, and principles. The shucks are generally self-sufficient, but the exchange of food, goods, and ideas is evident in the history of the future.

Many of the shucks venerate an ancient teenager named Greta who warned the ancestors of our future selves that they needed to change, but whose prophesy was not heeded. Evidence from the future suggests that this veneration coalesced around a ceremony performed by the shucks that reminds our future selves to not repeat the errors of their ancestors. The curators present an example of this ritual.

The curators have also collected evidence of interactions with a mysterious Black woman who appears to the shucks to guide, teach, comfort, and encourage. This evidence suggests that she can move through space and time but cannot change the course of events directly. In many ways, she is the embodiment of wisdom and is known as She Who Sees. Many shucks perform rituals of She Who Sees but they are of a very different character than veneration or reenactment. They are an effort to connect with something larger than themselves but that exists within themselves. The curators present an example of this ritual as well.

Not shown in this exhibit are examples of She Who Sees from before “E”. Records from before “E” suggest that She Who Sees interacted with humans of African descent at moments of great suffering such as Lynchings and the destruction of Greenwood. It is unclear if she appeared to other communities before “E”, but according to the artifacts left behind by our future selves, She Who Sees has appeared to all communities since “E”.

The curators hope that the presentation of these artifacts from our future selves will lead us, their ancestors, to learn from our future selves before they exist and consider how we interact with each other and with our environment in our time.