Our miniseries Not Now, But Soon challenges the stories we often tell about disasters and explores how we can use speculative fiction to create better futures and policies.

On our final episode of this season, host Malka Older examines the role art and fiction play in understanding war. She talks with art and culture historian Brigitte van der Sande, who has spent 25 years studying how war is represented in art—research that brought her to many active conflict zones. Van der Sande discusses how art humanizes the victims of war and spurs action, and how humor and imagination can be forces for resistance. 

Resources: 

• “Inside Hell We Build Paradise.” Read more about van der Sande’s visit to Rojava, Syria, as part of efforts to build democracy in the region. 
• Check out Other Futures, a multidisciplinary festival that presents speculative visions of the future, founded by van der Sande in 2018. 
• See artwork mentioned in this episode: “The Eyes of Gutete Emerita” and “Soft Target.”
• Learn more about van der Sande’s latest project, Culture House FKA the Cannibals. 

This podcast is part of the Future Tense Fiction project, a speculative fiction series that uses imagination to explore how science and technology will shape our future. Read the short stories from the series published by Issues in Science and Technology.