Ilhan - Reality Poets Choice Award - Visual Art

The Future is Now
Alhassan “EL” Abdulfattaah 

The future is here 
The future is now 
The future is there all the way around
Many different sounds, techniques
Artists and poems that gets deep—enriches the soul 
As soon as you hear the tone … goosebumps
Cold stares but what they really don't wanna tell you 
Is this future is coming 
Changing the world for good
This future appeal is real 
Life lessons with experiences built this future 
Together we are in it and together we will win it
Accessible levels and options are granted 
Welcoming all races faces and people who feel outta place 
Open to all this future is within the future begins 
with you

We’re living in a time of immense upheaval and churning. Everything, it seems, is up for debate. All the things we once thought of as certain, secure and normal are being questioned, tested. It is in this time that the real work of transformation can happen. When the ideas that make up who we are become stale and no longer serve us it is time to start anew. In this volume of The Collection we are asking how do we manifest the world we want to see? How do we make the future present? Author, documentarian and activist Toni Cade Bambara said “the role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible.” In a way, artists are future seers, affording us a glimpse into what’s possible; making visible, tangible a world that’s yet to come. What once was an idea, a hunch, an inkling the artist brings to life and once we experience it, we have in our bodies a memory of it. How mighty to have in our bodies a memory of a future that’s yet to come. The artists in this volume offer us a glimpse into that future that lives in the now, its potentiality embedded in the words, images, sounds and ideas of their work.

Peace and love,

The Collection Editors