This place is a message positions children and young people as seers and prophets, blending documentary and fiction to reflect on humanity’s current state and envision possible posthuman futures.
In our age of accelerating technological development, environmental crisis, and sociopolitical complexity, This place is a message blends documentary and fiction to imagine a future that has evolved beyond the limits of our current iteration of homo sapiens. It positions children and young people as seers and prophets, and in questioning how we might communicate the danger of buried nuclear waste to future beings 24,000 years into the future, the young people become our guides, reflecting on humanity’s current state and envisioning possible posthuman futures.
In a disused chalk quarry in the summer of 2021, Webb-Ellis collaborated with young people to co-create an imaginary world and alternative environment for learning. Using methods of philosophical enquiry, radical listening, dance, drawing and singing, the artists and young people worked together to weave a fractured narrative which became the basis for This place is a message.
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