@article{10951,
  keywords = {DYSTOPIA, Indigenous Futurism, Simi festivals, artistic activism, Climate change},
  author = {E De Vivo},
  title = {Markomeannu\#2118, the Future is Already Here: Imagining a Sami Future at the Intersection of Art and Activism},
  abstract = {The 2018 edition of the Simi festival Mirkomeannu elaborated a narrative about the future of both the environment and society by articulating fears of an oncoming apocalypse and hopes for Indigenous Simi futures through a concept presented to festivalgoers via site-specific scenography, visual narratives, and performances. This essay, addressing the festival as a site of artistic activism, reveals the conceptual bases and cultural significance of the festival-plot in relation to Indigenous Simi cosmologies, the past and the possible future(s) in our time marked by escalating climate change. I argue that Mirkomeannu-2018, providing a narrative about the future in which, amidst the Western societies  dystopic colonial implosion, Indigenous people thrive, can be regarded as an expression of Indigenous Futurism. Counterpointing 19th-century theories predicting the imminent vanishing of Indigenous peoples while positioning the Simi as modern Indigenous peoples with both a past and a future, this narrative constitutes an act of empowerment. Simi history and intangible cultural heritage constituted repositories of meaning whereas a folktale constituted a framework for the festival-plot while providing an allegorical tool to read the present.},
  volume = {12},
  number = {12},
  pages = {227-246},
  issn = {2083-2931},
  doi = {10.18778/2083-2931.12.14},
}