Hope floats

2025 WIP

“You write for a time that has not yet arrived. You write to children who have not yet been born.”
- Virginie Despantes reflecting on the work of Paul B Preciado.

‘Hope floats’ is a new two-channel video work that examines the profound potential of hope. For the past 18 months, now formalised through PhD research, I have been conceptually and research-focused on ‘hope’ as a generative methodology for imagining collective futures.

My central question of hope lies squarely with the urgent need to assess the relationship between personal and communal wellness in a world of political and ecological anxiety. I believe that hope fuels the action required to enact imaginative strategies. Philosopher and educator Paolo Freire defines hope as “radical, with oppression and injustice creating opportunities for hopeful and emancipatory action” and also states in his text ‘Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed that, “the essential thing is that, hope, as an ontological need, demands an anchoring in practice. As an ontological need, hope NEEDS practice in order to become historical concreteness.” [1]

That is key to my understanding and thinking – that the hope is needing practice to actually locate it as an actionable thing in the world, and also that we can view hope as a sustained practice in itself.

This work positions children’s imagination and community collaboration as frameworks for resilience, offering a counterpoint to narratives of extraction, climate terror, grief, genocide, and global precarity. It reflects on the structures—both metaphorical and material—required to sustain uncertain futures and mitigate harm.

'Hope Floats', features interviews with primary school children highlighting their considerations on hope. In preparation, I worked collaboratively with Footscray City Primary School, to build a relationship with the students in prep to grade four to work on these video portraits.

To reciprocate the generosity of the school, I designed and delivered a 4-week lesson plan which has now been taught across all art classes, in each grade at the primary school. In the delivery of the lesson plan, the students were introduced to the concept and role of the manifesto, how it has historically been used to instigate and inspire change and how we might go about writing a collaborative manifesto on hope, together.