der greif issue 18: tomorrow is today

Der Greif has invited Hank Willis Thomas, supported by Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung, to guest-edit Issue 18.

The theme for the open call: “Tomorrow is Today.”

What if tomorrow were already here? What if today was our last chance to choose love over hate, action over apathy, community over chaos? We invite you as image makers, visual storytellers, and artists to respond to the fierce urgency of now. Inspired by the final published words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., this open call asks: Can we live the future we hope for – today?

Tomorrow is Today – Curatorial statement by Hank Willis Thomas.

“The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals who pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee once said in a speech: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.”

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The “tide in the affairs of men” does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on...” We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coanni-hilation. This may well be mankind’s last chance to choose between chaos and community.”

This is a call for meditations on this quote Martin Luther King excerpt from “Where Do We Go From Here? Chao’s or Community” originally published in 1967, part of the last words King published in his lifetime.

Can we imagine a tomorrow rooted in today that inspires a brighter day. Calling us to imagine if tomorrow is today that we should be acting today and living today in the tomorrow we want to imagine.

What does it mean to live as if the future is already here? Can love have the last word?