Indigenous Futurisms

Indigenous Futurisms is a movement consisting of art, literature, comics, games, and other forms of media which express Indigenous perspectives of the future, past, and present in the context of science fiction and related sub-genres. Such perspectives may reflect Indigenous ways of knowing, traditional stories, historical or contemporary politics, and cultural realities.

Like Afrofuturism, encapsulate multiple modes of art making from literature to visual arts, fashion and music.[1] Inspired by Afrofuturism, the term was coined by Dr. Grace Dillon,[2] professor in the Indigenous Nations Studies Program at Portland State University.[3] In the anthology, Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction, Dillon outlines how science-fiction can aid processes of decolonization. Using tools like slipstream, worldbuilding, science fiction and anthropological First Contact scenarios, Indigenous communities construct self-determined representations and alternative narratives about their identities and futures.[4] Indigenous Futurists critique the exclusion of Indigenous people from the contemporary world and challenge notions of what constitutes advanced technology.[5] In so doing, the movement questions the digital divide, noting that Indigenous peoples have at once been purposefully excluded from accessing media technologies and constructed as existing outside of modernity.[6] The widespread use of personal computers and the Internet following the Digital Revolution created conditions in which, to some extent, Indigenous peoples may participate in the creation of a network of self-representations.[7]

Prominent artists working within the field of Indigenous Futurisms include Loretta Todd, a Cree/Métis filmmaker who runs IM4, the Indigenous Matriarchs 4 XR Media Lab;[8] Elizabeth LaPensée, an Anishinaabe, Métis, and settler-Irish game designer and digital artist;[9] Skawennati, a Mohawk multi-media artist best known for her project TimeTraveller™, a nine-episode machinima series that uses science fiction to examine First Nations histories;[10] Stephen Graham Jones, a Blackfeet author; Cree Métis multimedia artist Jason Baerg; and Wendy Red Star, an Apsáalooke artist.

Indigenous scholars have advanced understanding of Indigenous Futurisms. Dr. Grace Dillon, who is editor of Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction,[11] has encouraged stories through IIF, the Imagining Indigenous Futurisms Science Fiction Contest. Lou Catherine Cornum is a writer, scholar, and Indigenous Futurist known for their work Space NDNs.[12] Chickasaw scholar Jenny L. Davis emphasizes the importance of 'Indigenous language futurisms,' where she shows that Indigenous languages are important to articulating and understanding Indigenous temporalities.[13][14]