THE SUBSTANCE WITH WHICH THE FUTURE IS MADE

The Substance With Which The Future Is Made
On view: February 7–May 30, 2025, everyday 6:00pm – 12:00am
The Yard at Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, UAE (17th St - Al Quoz - Al Quoz Industrial Area 1 - Dubai)

Rooted in the words of Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, who famously said, “The present moment is the substance with which the future is made,” the exhibition reflects on how the human mind often escapes pain by clinging to the past or projecting into the future, leaving the present behind. While this is an understandable response, it is in the present moment where our greatest capacity for action resides.

With each work running for two weeks, these video pieces explore the fragile yet powerful essence of presence as an essential part of building just and compassionate spaces to live. In the face of persistent, growing global violence—unbearable and inescapable—these artworks invite us to reflect on the act of being present as both a small yet vital response to our shared human experience and a crucial part of the fight for human rights.

The Substance With Which The Future Is Made seeks to ground us in the current moment—to face the horror and loss of today—so that we may continue to protect and build the homes we call our own.

Featured Works

The four-and-a-half-minute video, Slug, ruminates on the form of the common snapdragon, exploring its visual associations with the face and the potential for speech. The word "slug," beyond its use for a shell-less terrestrial gastropod, also refers to the black section of frames in video editing. The slow, visual pulsing of the caption [CRICKETS] on the black screen evokes the sound of crickets, followed by an abrupt cut to a close-up of a burgundy snapdragon. Hands gently manipulate the flower, squeezing its sides, making its petals open and close like a mouth. As this happens, the flower begins to describe some of the most common human nightmares.

maashi goon (snow blowing hard) is the second film in Aylan Couchie’s wenbik series, created during the early days of the pandemic. Drawn to the stillness of the land as the world slowed down, Couchie reflects on the deep connections between Nishnaabe language, land, and ways of seeing. Filmed in the serene landscapes of Nbisiing (Nipissing), the work contrasts the quiet beauty of nature with the overwhelming noise of social media and relentless pandemic news cycles. Through meditative visuals, maashi goon invites viewers to (re)connect with the land, offering a space of reflection rooted in Nishnaabe language and understanding—a counterpoint to the chaos of uncertain times.

Lifelong Guest presents glimpses of the daily lives, rituals, and past of the Pontic people in a short documentary format. It aims to shed light, through oral history, on the memories, silent stories, and fading traditions of individuals who, perhaps unknowingly, preserve the cultural and historical fabric of the region. It also connects to my own family history and home- town archive. Beyond the place everyone calls home, this work serves as a brief visual visit to the bridge that a community builds between its past and present.

Untitled (The Festival) is set in an urban context, documenting a journey of an individual through a city filled with rubble and debris. It begins with the individual picking up a sheet of paper, lighting it up on fire and then throwing it to the ground. The act becomes repetitive, a commentary to the normalcy of accepting the conditions imposed on them without protest.

A slab of butter dominates the center of the frame. The scene shows two hands entering the frame from left and right, each holding knives they use to cut, chip, and carve at the butter. Each of these actions transforms the slab into a newly shaped form. The video gets darker as time passes and the sunlight fades. A piece of bread, some crumbs, and seeds appear at some point, being present with each other while eating is the proposed action.

Hiding in Plain Sight centers on Heracleum Persicum, commonly known as Giant Hogweed, a plant native to Iran that was displaced during the colonial era. Once prized as an ornamental species, it is now categorized as “alien and invasive” in Europe and North America. The video explores how colonial histories have shaped the concepts of “native” and “non-native,” creating artificial landscapes and distorting the relationship between humans and the natural world. The smooth, leisurely-moving images are extracted from surveillance drone footage tasked with locating and monitoring Giant Hogweed in Canada. By removing the rapid, jarring movements from the original footage, these images are transformed into a contemplative exploration of the landscape, prompting a reevaluation of our connection to nature.

Alice Gosti’s someone in some future time will think of us, 2023, is a single channel video, 3:49 minutes, by MALACARNE, Gosti’s performance company, which is focused on creating social-political performance spectacles which reflect the way that history, politics and architecture enter the body and condition people to move, relate and exist. This is an excerpt of Alice Gosti’s live 3 hour performance on emotional geography that takes place inside of the Seattle Center Monorail while it is moving through the city in four 15-minute cycles of performance. Audience members are also commuters. Five MALACARNE performers utilize the monorail’s benches, architecture and sound system.

Anahita Razmi’s Roof Piece Tehran, 2011, is a new edit of her 12 channel video taking Trisha Brown's 1971 setup for the work "Roof Piece” which was re-realized in Tehran, Iran where its rooftops became known, then, as a 'performance space' in a different context. These spaces gathered attention in relation to the protests after the Iranian presidential election 2009, where protesters were standing on their rooftops at night shouting paroles throughout the city, which were echoing from one roof to another. Considering dance and artistic performance non-conforming to the regulations of the islamic regime are forbidden, no audience could attend the performance, instead this video was created.

Artists’ Biographies here

Press inquiries: Sidian Liu sidian@protocinema.org or Mari Spirito mari@protocinema.org, +1 917 660 7332