As part of an ongoing conversation with the title / Stealing the Futures We Were Promised / DUST invites practitioners and thinkers to dream up a new kind of institute – one that they can act out and become.

We wonder: What kind of institute is needed right now, how can it act, how can it foster imagination and action in a time of paralyzing uncertainty?

As a fugitive institute that lives by uncertainty, we must continually renew ourselves, and listen loud and clear: How do we steal the future that already belongs to us? In other words, how can we uphold institutions to their promises made about the future, while at the same time bringing back those promised futures into the present?

DUST is a speculative institute that has been created in order to offer frames to practice imagination and storytelling. It is therefore an epicenter of experimental energy, built from the dialogue between critical theory and concrete artistic responses. DUST is five young artists and emanates from an autonomous three-week lab taking place as part of DAS Theater.

DUST is currently composed of Agat Sharma, Ainhoa Hernández Escudero,Tom Oliver Jacobson, Pankaj Tiwari, Luís Guenel and Ebana Garin

Isabelle Vuong is a producer and curator in the performing and visual arts with an M.A in Future Studies. She is currently co-curator at Shedhalle.

Prof. Dr. Bojana Kunst is a philosopher, dramaturg and performance theoretician, currently holding a position as professor at the university of Giessen in Applied Theater Studies.