Literary festival Prima Vista 2024 “Futures Better and Worse”

Our festival asks how do literature and the arts today imagine the future of humanity. What do they see there and what would they like to see? What are they warning us against and guiding us towards? How can art help to create the future?

We live in an overdeveloped, impenetrable, constantly emergent and unpredictable cultural space, surrounded by general ecological instability and a constant threat of catastrophe. In such circumstances, it is increasingly difficult to think big, make long-term plans and implement those collectively. Utopias and dystopias are artistic tools that educate and stimulate the imagination in the face of such challenges precisely.

We are organising a festival for you in a utopian spirit – not focusing on literature alone, but rather drawing on literature and exploring the wider cross-cutting potential of it. Alongside traditional event formats, we will bring you as many experimental and inclusive formats, collaborative and participatory forms as possible.

We will take literature outside the dry lecture hall. We will explore a wide range of utopian and dystopian topics with you at unexpected, participatory and theatrical events. Our global imagination is currently captivated by, for example, the climate crisis and ecotopia; surveillance capitalism and the liberating potential of technology; the contemporary meaning of classic dystopias and the impact of dystopian aesthetics.

Art does not change the world directly and immediately. It quietly and steadily changes the ways we feel, think, say and do in the world. We will create an artistic platform from which to start thinking about the possibility of social change and the precise substance of that change – in Tartu, in South-Estonia and in Europe more broadly.

Long live the people who feed on literature. May they be there in the future as well.