The Ancestral Futures Residency is an ongoing dialogue connecting India, the Americas, and Europe—specifically Greece. It brings together diverse heritages and ancestral traditions with a vision of the future that embraces harmony with nature—as an art form, a cherished cultural practice, and a deeply creative act.
The concept of Ancestral Futures arises from a commitment to exchange—between artists, communities, and ecosystems—acknowledging that our cultural identities are hybrid, shaped and colonized by the values of modernity. Knowledge, creativity, and heritage are not static; they travel, transform, and intersect across geographies and histories.
We rethink time not as a linear continuum, but as a sphere, including spirals, loops, and parallel trajectories. This perspective moves beyond multiple modernities and post-modernities toward Ancestral Futures — a horizon that includes human and non-human contributions alike.
Within this framework, art becomes a practice of reciprocity and dialogue, connecting local and global traditions, ancestral wisdom, and contemporary creativity. The goal is to imagine futures that are relational, regenerative, and inclusive—where memory, creativity, and ecology coexist in ongoing exchange.
Participating artists and thinkers contribute to a flow of relationships and creative exchange, becoming part of a network that endures beyond the residency itself and includes partners in India and the Americas.
The Ancestral Futures Residency is an artist-led program designed as a space where creativity, reflection, and community converge. Unlike traditional residencies, participants are not required to produce work—though many naturally do—engaging through interaction, experimentation, and creation in response to place.
The residency is equally a time for reflection, contemplation, and attunement to the rhythms of rural Switzerland, Greece, India, or Colombia and their landscapes.
Many projects continue beyond the residency. Above: film screening of “We Converge in Water” by Radhika Agarwala at Travencore Palace, New Delhi. Below: stills from the concept trailer Pera Panta – Over there, a larger project on reforestation and community participation by Lara Saget and Sonja Schenkel.
