Days Ahead

The Sub-Saharan Advisory Panel’s project, Day’s Ahead, supported the Youth Leadership Network to develop a youth-led imagination futures forum to debate, explore and challenge future narratives wherein the dominant worldview is not Western. 

It began with a call-out for young (18-30) creatives from the African community and diaspora, and with the vision to explore deep narratives, tracing colonial tropes and creating new knowledge in their stead. During weekly sessions, artists were invited to share their practice & journey, and to discuss the importance of creativity, activism and heritage. What emerged during these workshops, however, were new questions about identity - what united the creatives involved? What set them apart from one another?

In an online showcase of the artworks created through the project - from poems to stories, performances to zines, photography to graffiti - the creative participants share their stories, speak of their struggles and experiences and affirm their identities, perspectives and journeys. The project will also design and develop educational materials and resources to increase awareness and educate people in Wales and beyond with an ultimate view to create a fairer and more equal world.

This project is one answer to the question ‘who has the power to imagine?’, whilst the various artworks produced by participants are a kaleidoscope of examples of what can happen when that door to imagination is opened wider. In bringing together an explicitly decolonial framework with creative practice, within a context where space is held to challenge norms, question values and beliefs, and explore the many complex facets of identity, this project is creating fertile ground for a bigger, more beautiful space for imagining what the future might be. 

You can learn more about the project and the artists here, or explore their art here.