Transcript of Jasmine Wade ARCHIVE OF FUTURES Interview

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Anna Ward: Alright. Hi, Jasmine.

Jasmine:Hey.

Anna Ward: So thank you so much for agreeing to do this. My name is an Anna Ward and I’m the Grants and Program Manager for the Feminist Research Institute at UC Davis.

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Anna Ward: And I am thrilled to be talking with one of the Feminist Research Institute’s Graduate Fellows for this year, Jasmine Wade. Jasmine is a cultural studies graduate group, graduate student at UC Davis.

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Anna Ward: And is here to talk about her project Archives of Futures, which of course fit in nicely with FRI’s theme this year which was Feminist Futures.

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Anna Ward: So it was a great, great fit, obviously. So before we really get into it. Tell us a little bit about this project and a website that you created.

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Jasmine Wade: Awesome. So with, Archive of Futures and as it stands right now.

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Jasmine Wade: I'm calling for and curating artifacts from the next 200 years and so what that means is uh, you know, people have been thinking about what apps we might see in the next 200 years what stories might come up, what

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Jasmine Wade: People predicting, even the election in the next few months, kind of looking or what might come of

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Jasmine Wade: This whole covid 19 situation and just thinking through imagining what our future might look like and also maybe what we would like it to look like.

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Anna Ward: So, so people are essentially crafting what could be artifacts, but from moments that have not yet happened.

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Jasmine Wade: Exactly.

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Anna Ward: So you’re having people kind of push themselves into thinking about what the possible futures might be.

Jasmine Wade: Yeah.

Anna Ward: Do you, do you have the the website or some submissions that you could actually show us?

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Jasmine Wade: So, um, I guess, first I’ll show my, my, I'll show my submission to the, to the archive.

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Jasmine Wade: It is because I'm that nerd.

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Jasmine Wade: The index of a book that hasn't been written yet.

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Jasmine Wade: Um,

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Jasmine Wade: Here we go. So can you see that?

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Anna Ward: Yeah. OK.

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Jasmine Wade: So the, the book is The Rise and Fall of the American Empire.

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Jasmine Wade: The fifth and final volume. Um, and what I basically did was go through and create

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah. The, what could be part of the index of this particular volume and thinking about, like, I don't know, it's just I kind of geeked out a little bit. Thinking about like what indexes do and how they indicate like what's what a text says, or, you know, the pieces that are involved in a text.

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Anna Ward: Right.

Jasmine Wade: So there's all kinds of stuff here. Um,

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Anna Ward: I like the section on decolonization.

Jasmine Wade: Yes.

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Anna Ward: Yes, long.

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Jasmine Wade: I know.

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Jasmine Wade: Yes, I had so much fun with this and it feels incomplete. Um, I think I'm submitting something that feels, not quite. Um, and I think that's been tough for me as a writer as an artist to submit something that doesn't feel quite as, like, polished, polished.

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Jasmine Wade: But I think, um,

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Jasmine Wade: I want to, you know, emphasize that I think I think the submissions to the archive don't have to be

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Jasmine Wade: Perfect in the way that we think of them. And I think even the kind of rough, the roughness of the of the index I think is important.

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Jasmine Wade: Thinking about how futures can be flexible, or how futures can be you know imperfect.

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Anna Ward: Right, right, interesting section too on nostalgia.

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Anna Ward: Yes, 1950s. In the 1990s.

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Anna Ward: And then a subsection on delusion.

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Anna Ward: With respect to nostalgia.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah, it's

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Anna Ward: Kamala Harris makes an entry there.

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Jasmine Wade: I know, and so I worked on this a bit before we got as deep into the 2020 election and as we did I had different hopes.

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Anna Ward: Right, right.

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Anna Ward: Interesting and so you. I know you're still accepting submissions, of course, but have you received some already?

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Jasmine Wade: Yes, I can show you one, let’s see

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Jasmine Wade: So I have a piece of visual art.

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Jasmine Wade: Okay, so there's two actually here. One, you can see is just a example that I drew up of the don't touch my hair laws that might be passed at some

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Jasmine Wade: point in the next hundred years. I'm hoping

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Jasmine Wade: Especially as now we do have laws on the books

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Jasmine Wade: that say you can't get fired for having your natural hair.

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Anna Ward: In California right?

Jamsmine Wade: California not, not, no in California

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Anna Ward: I gotta be really clear that

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Jasmine Wade: It's not everywhere yet.

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Jasmine Wade: Hoping that we're on a path where the

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Jasmine Wade: Kind of laws allowing folks to uphold and protect their own personal space may emerge in the future. That's, that's a dream.

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Jasmine Wade: Um,

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Jasmine Wade: And then this one is a submission from an artist.

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Jasmine Wade: Called the goddess. So one of the interesting things with this. I don't know the story behind it yet. So part of what I've been doing is going back and forth with artists and asking for

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Jasmine Wade: blurbs, descriptions, like what I'm trying to get a sense of when they think this is happening, where they think this is happening and so this goddess is appearing hopefully in this artist version of the future, a couple hundred years from now.

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Anna Ward: And so, and you've already started receiving submissions from people that you don't even know right you don't have connections to

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Jasmine Wade: Yes yes people I don't have connections to I've also been

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Jasmine Wade: It's been interesting. I've been talking to archivists

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah.

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Jasmine Wade: This project thinking about how to structure it

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Jasmine Wade: And and specifically because I decided that it would be an archive and not an anthology or, you know, a digital just kind of digital repository of arts, um,

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Jasmine Wade: So in talking with archivist’s they've been reminding me that I'm a curator, not an editor. And so that's been kind of an interesting hat to put on

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Anna Ward: Hmm

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Jasmine Wade: So I've also been reaching out to folks who I know do this kind of work and asking like, can we include such and such and link back to your website or can we include you know

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Jasmine Wade: This artifact that you created for such and such exhibit or your website, you know.

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Anna Ward: Right

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Anna Ward: So do you have archivist’s that are actually submitting as well? Because of course I'm you know my, my nerd out moment is what would archives look like in the future.? Right.

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Anna Ward: Do you have anybody kind of

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Anna Ward: Thinking about that and maybe possibly crafting a submission around what a what an archive is going to look like.

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Jasmine Wade: I have not yet, but that's a great idea. I should reach out to them.

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Anna Ward: I was gonna say I've got some ideas for you.

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Jasmine Ward: Okay, okay. That’s great!

Anna Ward: Well, this is easy. Do you happened to have the website on hand that you could actually just sort of show us, even the homepage.

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Jasmine Ward: Yes.

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Jasmine Wade: Alright, how's that, can you see that?

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Anna Ward: Yeah.

Jasmine Wade: Okay, great. So this is the homepage. So basically what I did for the call for submissions is I created a descendant.

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Jasmine Wade: So some, you know, my children's children’s, child. I'm 200 or so years from now, who is inviting folks to submit artifacts from the years 2020 to 2220 that will go in this

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Jasmine Wade: Home that I imagine this kind of part museum, part art gallery, part

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Jasmine Wade: school.

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Jasmine Wade: Named after Octavia Butler

Anna Ward: right

Jasmine Wade: And then

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Jasmine Wade: So I mentioned a couple examples. This is fictional but thus far we've been pleased to receive a donation that includes photographs

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Jasmine Wade: From the 2023 black women's march that led to the don't touch my hair law in 2027 the original design’s for the Secretary of the Arts education Janelle Monet's half Android body.

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Jasmine Wade: So just, you know, ideas.

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Anna Ward: Yeah. Well, I was gonna say we've gotta, we've got to figure out how to actually,

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Anna Ward: actualize this

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Anna Ward: By getting involved in this.

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Jasmine Wade: Yes.

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Jasmine Wade: Well, and I think

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Jasmine Wade: there's some stuff in the works.

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Jasmine Wade: Like I'm, I'm working with a couple people in the bay.

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Jasmine Wade: Thinking about reenacting the the march up California that

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Jasmine Wade: The characters didn't in The Parable of the Sower in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.

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Jasmine Wade: And so kind of like what would it mean to kind of reenact that, those scenes from a dystopian future.

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Anna Ward: Right

Jasmine Wade: And then not taking pictures and putting that in the archive. So it's, yeah. I think it's part people submitting things but also you know I'm developing partnerships with like the Museum of children's art in Oakland.

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Jasmine Wade: To set up workshops and spaces where children can submit and think about images that they want.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah, I'm hoping to also, you know, do some kind of guest appearances

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Jasmine Wade: In other places.

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Anna Ward: Amazing. Well, so that actually might be a good segue into talking about kind of what the inspiration was behind this project and what kind of planted the seeds

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Anna Ward: of this project for you and I'm gonna, I'm going to guess that that Octavia Butler has something to do with it. So, talk to us a little bit about kind of your inspiration for this project.

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Jasmine Wade: So I think it was a kind of a convergence of things. Um, I consider myself an Afro-futurist kind of in like politically, but also as an artist. So like I've been writing Afrofuturist stories.

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Jasmine Wade: And my dissertation is probably going to be part Afrofuturism if it allows such a thing. Um, so I was thinking about that always, you know, even before PhD life.

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Jasmine Wade: But then I got to Davis and read Saidiya Hartman, for the first time.

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Jasmine Wade: And that was like really a transformative experience.

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Jasmine Wade: Trying to think of what I read first. I read Venus in Two Acts

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Anna Ward: her article.

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Jasmine Wade: Where she talks about critical tabulation as being

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Jasmine Wade: all kinds of things, but in my memory like allowing fiction to do some reparative work in archives, um,

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Jasmine Wade: that's an oversimplification. I encourage people to actually read the article but yeah and then I read.

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Jasmine Wade: What did I read? Um, Lose your mother by Saidiya Hartman and so there's the scene of lose your mother

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Jasmine Wade: or maybe it's a whole chapter where she tells the same story three times from three different perspectives. Right and it is the story of the death of a woman who

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Jasmine Wade: is enslaved and is on a ship in the middle passage. Right.

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Jasmine Wade: And the first story I believe is told from the perspective of the captain who kills her. And so the narrative that Saidiya builds is rooted in the archive. It's, you know,

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Jasmine Wade: transcripts and you know all these different artifacts that she pulls together to inform the narrative. Then the second version is told by a witness

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Jasmine Wade: someone who you know is on deck. He might have been the second in command I can't remember right now. Um, and then the third story.

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Jasmine Wade: Um, Hartman tells from the girls point of view. Right. And so, and that story is almost entirely fiction, because the archive doesn't give, doesn't have there are no artifacts that give her a voice.

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Jasmine Wade: And I come back to that chapter, over and over again. I'm just like, you know what.

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Jasmine Wade: Just like the power of taking what, understanding the limits of the archive and then exceeding them.

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Jasmine Wade: In a way that that is just really beautiful and powerful. Um, so I started to think about what that might mean

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Jasmine Wade: as an Afrofuturist like someone who’s, I'm not, I don't do history. I'm not. I mean, not that history is bad. It’s just, that's not my thing. Right. So I was thinking about what

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Jasmine Wade: fiction and archives might mean for the future.

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Anna Ward: Right.

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Jasmine Wade: You know, related to some my research and where my research interests lie.

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Anna Ward: So, well, it's actually and the share screen here.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah.

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Anna Ward: You can see here your wonderful background even larger.

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Jasmine Wade: My bad.

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Anna Ward: Yeah, there you go, no, no worries. Um, so

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Anna Ward: what you know because part of what you're having people do right is of course a little bit different in the sense of, of

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Anna Ward: Hartman is of course is filling in gaps in a way and imagining the past that you know for reasons of

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Anna Ward: White supremacy and on, right. We don't have access to in the traditional form of the archive and so you're sort of taking that up but also asking people to imagine into the future. Right. So putting sort of that

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Anna Ward: Afrofuturist lens on it.

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Anna Ward: So what is it that you hope this project will do. Right. I mean, as researchers, and scholars. And then, of course, you're also coming with a tremendous background in terms of the creative arts as well.

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Anna Ward: You know, we always have a fantasy right about what our research will accomplish and then kind of why are we painstakingly doing this work. What’s at stake for you? Why does this research matter?

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Jasmine Wade: I think it's hard to visualize the futures that we can't see, you know, it's hard to realize features that we can't see and I, I think if there's something powerful in taking a moment to create a thing.

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Jasmine Wade: That you think might be at some point in the future you think might um

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah, that might exist at some time whether and it's it's funny because I get a lot of questions about whether or not this is a utopian project.

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Jasmine Wade: And I think no.

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Jasmine Wade: Um, we've gotten some submissions where I'm kind of like, okay, that's dark.

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Jasmine Wade: But I think there's also value in imagining, you know, what if things don't change. What if, you know, things don't or things don't change the way that we hope they will um

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Jasmine Wade: In the next 200 years like what does that imagining what that looks like and then seeing well can we decide

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Jasmine Wade: otherwise? Or if that's the case, how do, how do we continue to survive? How do we continue to be resilient?

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Jasmine Wade: In the face of this thing that we've

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Jasmine Wade: imagined might happen.

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Jasmine Wade: I think these are important conversations and I, I have

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Jasmine Wade: I'm also drawing on inspiration from both scholars, but also activists who are

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Jasmine Wade: doing I mean, activists who are essentially doing the work of science fiction and trying to build worlds that don't exist.

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Jasmine Wade: Yet, and I think there's uh, there's, we can help you know in building these artifacts. I think the archive can offer inspiration. I think it can be a process of healing, I think, um, I think, I also think there's healing to be found in creating dystopian narratives

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah.

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Anna Ward: Yeah, yeah, I know you know in a different context. You and I have worked together in teaching contexts. Great fortune of having you as a teaching assistant and

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Anna Ward: one of the things I know that we've talked about that is always, I think, is always a challenge in the fields that we teach in which are so much about what is identifying what is wrong, what needs addressing.

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Anna Ward: And it can get students a little kind of down, right and in that place of like. And so how do we get students to think about not just staying in that place of critique. Right. But what do you want?

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Anna Ward: What do you want to see? What do you want of this world?

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Right.

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Anna Ward: And kind of moving them into that place and I and I always think about your project. And, you know, you also have a very

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Anna Ward: strong background as an educator. Right. And I can see that in the project that you created right is how to kind of set up a project that allows people to step into that space of okay now. You

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Anna Ward: You imagine you think through these possibilities.

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Anna Ward: Is

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Anna Ward: Is there a part of this

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Anna Ward: that you know, I always think about your work with respect to I think it's Kyla Wazana Tompkins has that bit about theory that

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Anna Ward: in some fields theory is very much about thinking about the patterns of what are, right.

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Anna Ward: Versus the way that she describes theory, which is it's about you know that that idea of imagining otherwise right it's that theory is in part.

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Anna Ward: If you can step back and sort of see a bigger picture. You can also see a bigger picture that can change, right and could be a different reality. Is that is a part of it as as well is that there's a part of speculation and the kinds of things that creativity can unleash

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Anna Ward: that is also about theory building for you?

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Jasmine Wade: I think so you know it's funny you bring that up. I just reread a piece by Toni Kade Bambara.

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Jasmine Wade: Where she is talking about being, her education uh, how she became a writer and her education, like it's I think it's the essays called the Education of a Writer or something like that.

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Jasmine Wade: And how for her theory didn't come in school.

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Anna Ward: Right.

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Jasmine Wade: You know, it was this woman, Miss Dorothy, who would ask her questions and and and push her and, you know, she would come home from the library and have all these like I know Einstein's theory of relativity

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Jasmine Wade: And she's like, well who else knows this. And she's like, well, no one knows that I know that I'm the one I know this. And she's like, well, if your community doesn't know it, do you actually know it?

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Jasmine Wade: If your community doesn't have this knowledge. What are you doing, you know? Um, and thinking about. That's got me thinking about, like, the accessibility of theory.

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Jasmine Wade: Of where theory comes from? The role of community, in theory building and even as you know currently working on curriculum for for children thinking about children as as sites of futuristic theory building

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Jasmine Wade: And what that means and how how fun I think that could be especially because you know they- the imagination of a child.

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Jasmine Wade: So, oh my gosh, it's, it's so powerful. And I think they're able to see things that I in all of my decades and all the jadedness that I feel now.

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Jasmine Wade: Like

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Jasmine Wade: I just can't see. I just can't. I can't. I can't imagine it. Now, you know. Yeah.

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Anna Ward: Yeah, no, I mean, because I also think about your work in relation to something like like

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Anna Ward: Jose Munoz’s work around what queer is and that queer is always about a horizon. Right, that's sort of

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Anna Ward: You know, imagining that horizon and that there is something you know obviously a half a dozen people have said it but something very clear about children.

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Anna Ward: Right. They're just out there and they are not beholding to the, the kind of patterns and structures that we, despite despite of our you know best efforts.

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Anna Ward: Get kind of stuck in and you know every time you know my son says something like that tastes yellow or like, does that thing where a different categories kind of collapse in on themselves. I'm like, yeah it does taste yellow.

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Anna Ward: That's amazing.

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Anna Ward: So yeah, I can definitely see why why thinking about curriculum building with respect to children is very tied up with this this project as well. So, um, so now I'm gonna ask you a really easy question.

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Jasmine Wade: Cool.

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Anna Ward: Okay really easy.

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Anna Ward: What does a feminist future mean to you?

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Jasmine Wade: Oh my gosh.

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Anna Ward: You know, I had to bring the theme back in here. So that's, that's FRI’s theme this year is Feminist Futures, what does that mean to you?

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Anna Ward: Or maybe why did you see the call?

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Jasmine Wade: Why did I see the uh yeah.

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Anna Ward: And say

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Anna Ward: You know, yes, of course, you know, there's the future connection, but like, why did this feel like a theme you could connect with it.

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Jasmine Wade: I think some so my relation to the cause of it was that so much feminist work is informing this project, you know i mean Octavia Butler you know, is the obvious one. Um,

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Jasmine Wade: And also Saidiya Hartman, you know, as I've mentioned before, and Toni Cade Bambara. And, you know, I've been. I feel like kind of steeping in black feminism that has been imagining otherwise and even thinking about like N.K. Jemisin's work.

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Jasmine Wade: And what that like the way that she's imagining blackness millennia from now. Right.

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Jasmine Wade: I think has been really informative of what of what this project is hoping to do. Um, so like theory wise, there's that connection. But I also saw

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Jasmine Wade: Potential here.

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Jasmine Wade: In the project trying to do some of the work that I see other feminist work trying to do in, you know, in that, like, kind of reparative healing educational

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Jasmine Wade: Type of feel, you know, even if, so I think it's been tricky, right, for the call for submissions, because I wanted to, I didn't want to

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Jasmine Wade: constrain people or say I only want feminist submissions, because then that's that's just fraught with all kinds of stuff.

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Jasmine Wade: And then I would have to define feminism, which

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Is who does that?

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Anna Ward: Intro to Feminism, I don't know.

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Anna Ward: Yeah. So yeah, you certainly don't want to go down that path you

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Jasmine Wade: Know exactly, exactly, but it has been interesting and maybe it's just because of the circles that I have

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Jasmine Wade: I've been able to reach people have been submitting things that I think would read as as feminist futures

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Jasmine Wade: Or things that, you know, think about gender in a particular way. I had, there's one submission. I'm thinking of where someone was trying to predict the evolution of the human body and what that might mean for our conceptions of gender and sex.

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Jasmine Wade: You know, years from now. Um, I was like, whoa.

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Jasmine Wade: Okay.

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Jasmine Wade: This is, this is a game changer. You know, it's, it's been interesting. I'm thinking through a lot of that. Yeah. Yeah. Did that answer the question? I'm not sure.

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Anna Ward: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I could I could hold you to okay, give me your feminist future Jasmine, but no

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Anna Ward: I think it's pretty obvious, of course how your project you know contributes to getting people to imagine possible feminist futures as well.

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Anna Ward: Futures that are different in all sorts of ways right feminist could be one sort of identifier for it, but

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Anna Ward: Um, but yeah, I mean, there was an obvious connection. I think with the theme for FRI this year and your work on a lot of different levels. What was the experience like for you being an FRI graduate of fellow? We weren't too bad, were we?

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Jasmine Wade: No, no you all were

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Jasmine Wade: very supportive. The project was surprisingly stressful.

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Jasmine Wade: And I think part of it is like being a writer and an academic. There's

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Jasmine Wade: I'm not very often like putting myself out there or if I am. It's like I'm putting myself out there in the comfort of my own home where I can like freak out, you know, like sending out the article and then seeing like, Oh, are they going to accept it. Nobody has to see the panic.

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Jasmine Wade: You know, it's all happening.

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Jasmine Wade: Privately. Um, but I think this

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Jasmine Wade: This kind of project or even putting out a story, even if the

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Jasmine Wade: Story is near and dear to my heart, I think, um, but doing something that was

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Jasmine Wade: Collaborative. You know, I was working with a kind of team of people

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Jasmine Wade: To in this stage of the of the process. And then also trying to convince people

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Jasmine Wade: To submit

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Jasmine Wade: You know, and it was a lot of people dealing with people.

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Anna Ward: People work

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Jasmine Wade: A lot of people work, which is a lot for this introvert.

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Jasmine Wade: And then dealing with people on something that I so I think as I kept working on it. I started to realize how super duper important this project is to me.

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Jasmine Wade: Like it's it's heart work in a way that I think I was not expecting, I probably in part because in grant proposals.

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Jasmine Wade: It doesn't really sound like heartwork. It sounds like

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Anna Ward: Not a lot of heart work in grant writing

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Anna Ward: Yeah.

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Jasmine Wade: You know, so I was when I pitched it to people. It's like, oh, yes, this like brain experiment. But the more I began to work on it and the more people

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Jasmine Wade: I mean, even just having conversations with with people, people I know and also just, you know, people at like Safeway.

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Jasmine Wade: About things and they're like, oh yeah, like this thing could happen 100 years in the future. And I'm like, yeah, you know, it's like that that connection and and

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Jasmine Wade: I'm I feel a little bit like I'm holding people's dreams and fears and that feels like a big responsibility. Um, and I yeah it was I was not expecting the kind of huge emotional piece of working on a project like this.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah.

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Anna Ward: Yeah. Yeah. And I can imagine.

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Anna Ward: The things even that people come up with on the fly.

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Yeah.

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Anna Ward: And I don't even know what those conversations are what I know what those conversations are like right now. Right.

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Anna Ward: Because there is a way. You know, I was thinking about your project just in relation to what's going on.

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Anna Ward: Right now in terms of COVID-19 that that I'm seeing that question being asked more and more. So, you know, is this going is nothing ever going to be the same again? Or what is

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Anna Ward: What is, you know, healthcare, going look like in 10 years.? What's education going to look like in six months here, you know,

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Anna Ward: This kind of having to project and kind of

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Anna Ward: fear that that introduces for people. But also, you know, some folks going like, you know what, there's some things that

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Anna Ward: need to just stay gone right and there are some things that are not worth saving. Right. And kind of seeing. I don't know. Even folks with family members and friends that I'm talking to on the phone or

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Anna Ward: What have you just kind of thinking that question a little bit more than I've ever heard them in the past. I imagine you're getting some good conversation around that right now.

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Jasmine Wade: Yes, yes, for sure, you know, and also like

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Jasmine Wade: People thinking kind of locally their own lives and relationships and

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Jasmine Wade: just been there's lots of dreaming happening, I think, is the conversations that I'm having where people are even kind of like, all right, I might be ready to do that thing that I've been scared to do

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Jasmine Wade: Or, you know, people kind of trying to visualize what life might look like when we're allowed to be out and about, again,

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Anna Ward: Right.

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Jasmine Wade: You know, or it means I'm friends with a lot of entrepreneurs and so there's been lots of like okay, you know, thinking about what does it mean to have a small business that is quarantine proof, you know, how do we how do we prepare for these kinds of crises to come up again.

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Anna Ward: Right

Jasmine Wade: And not, you know, have it be completely devastating. I have been thinking a lot about

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Jasmine Wade: Specifically, climate change and

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Jasmine Wade: climate migrations.

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Jasmine Wade: And what that might look like. I don't want to say too much, but um

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Jasmine Wade: What it would like what it might mean in in, you know, the next 200 years if staying in one like living in one space becomes impossible because of the nature of the weather, the seasons, the climate.

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Jasmine Wade: And how, like the kind of new normal that might emerge because of that.

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Jasmine Wade: And I think people are now thinking about, like, Well, what if pandemics become especially like the way that globalization works and all these things what if pandemics become part of a new normal? How do we prepare?

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Anna Ward: Right, right.

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Jasmine Wade: That's been interesting has been lots of conversations about like bug out bags.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah.

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Anna Ward: Yeah, I mean I guess that I mean kind of lends itself nicely to the question of since people are in that headspace right now anyway.

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Anna Ward: And as you said, and kind of doing all of this dreaming and you know also inviting nightmarish scenarios of the dystopian variety. But, um, you

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Anna Ward: I know this is always hard to put yourself out there in this way. But what do you think in terms of your own just expertise and specialization and all that you've read and seen and contributed what what insight can you lend people in this moment?

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Anna Ward: What would, what do you say to those folks that are bringing all these dreams to you?

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Jasmine Wade: I say keep dreaming.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah, I think.

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Jasmine Wade: You know dreams are

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Jasmine Wade: fertile ground.

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Jasmine Wade: And I think they're important. They're, they're so important and I

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Jasmine Wade: I feel like so often we think of, you know, the billionaires of the world as being very grounded and in in in kind of the realm of the concrete. I'm a part of what I've been reading thinking about like Aimee Bahng’s Migrant Futures and Kara Keeling's, you know, what's the name of that book.

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Anna Ward: Queer

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Jasmine Wade: Decided that ourselves

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Anna Ward: lives Queer futures.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah yeah

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Anna Ward: Yeah, something

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Jasmine Wade: You should figure that out.

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Anna Ward: I will double check that and yeah book titles are always hard for me to remember

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Jasmine Wade: me too me too.

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Jasmine Wade: But thinking about that those books and how they present speculation as a fundamental fundamental part of capitalism.

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Anna Ward: Right

Jasmine Wade: No like there’s there’s speculation is constantly happening to have. This capitalist system is always dreaming and they're dreaming in ways that are not necessarily going to work for me. So I need to be dreaming, too.

Anna Ward: Right.

Jasmine Wade: Yeah, right. It can be tricky, right, to get so caught up in

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Jasmine Wade: the moment right and not to say that being you know present for the present is not important. But I also think it can be helpful to take some time

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Jasmine Wade: to think about futures. Right.

Anna Ward: Right, right.

Jasmine Wade: You know, and what we're working towards what we're building towards if we're building. If we're building

Anna Ward: right

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Jasmine Wade: If anything.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah, I say,

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Jasmine Wade: Keep dreaming. Yeah.

Anna Ward: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot. There's certainly a lot of work out there even talks about the that's that's part of it, right, is that you get you get people just sort of on that little hamster wheel.

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Anna Ward: Yeah, just trying to get by. And that's

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Anna Ward: part of how, at least for some folks, things don't ever change.

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Anna Ward: Versus what you're talking about, which is you know there there's at least a small group of people that are always thinking about the next thing and and how to capitalize on it. So I think that's a really good point. So okay, so keep dreaming.

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Anna Ward: In the context of this moment. What is it done to your work right here, You are a graduate student, I think you've got your, your exams are qualifying exams. Right in like a minute?

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Jasmine Wade: Right. Yeah.

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Anna Ward: You're working on this amazing project you're and you're, you know, oh, right.

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Anna Ward: And, and, you know, on one hand and right. You mentioned that you're an introvert and people were can be sometimes intense but I imagine you're missing people a little bit right now so

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Jasmine Wade: Oh yeah.

Anna Ward: So even the even the best of us. Introverts are going like, okay, I didn't mean that.

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Anna Ward: You know that. So what has it been like for you and what is it done for your research trajectory?

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Jasmine Wade: I think it's been

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Jasmine Wade: interesting.

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Jasmine Wade: Especially being in this this moment of the qualifying exams, where it's like the culmination of everything that I've been thinking about and reading and writing about for the last three years. Um, it feels like a big moment. Um, and I'm struck by

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Jasmine Wade: how hard it's been to try to process all of this information and not be able to like be outside

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Anna Ward: Right.

Jasmine Wade: Um, it's been yeah it's it's been hard and I think

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Jasmine Wade: It's got me thinking about again what what might be coming down the pike. You know, like, is this the beginning. Is this the beginning of something?

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Anna Ward: Right.

Jasmine Wade: Is this the beginning of a normal that I'm going to have to adjust to

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Jasmine Wade: Whether it be, you know, being inside. I mean, I think, also, like we're heading into summer, right, so we've got the quarantine happening.

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Jasmine Wade: And then summer in Sacramento is like boiling hot

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Jasmine Wade: and seems to get better every year. So I'm like, am I actually going to go outside when this is oh, maybe, maybe not, you know, depending on, I think it's supposed to be in like the 90s today and it's May

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Jasmine Wade: I don't, I don't know. And then after that it's fire season right we've been having the fires everywhere. The air is we literally can't be outside to breathe and so I'm thinking of, if we're thinking of the seasons. Will I be outside again before November?

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Anna Ward: To start

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Anna Ward: No, but I was thinking about the other day too, like they're gonna let us all out of our houses in June and we're gonna walk outside and it's going to be 99. The reason we're going to go right

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Anna Ward: Back in. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah, it's true. It's, it's, I think there's a general feeling of are we in the middle of

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Anna Ward: something? Are we at the beginning of something? Are we coming out of something?

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Jasmine Wade: Yes, something

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Anna Ward: And kind of the mix.

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Jasmine Wade: And it might be all of those things.

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Anna Ward: All of those things right.

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Jasmine Wade: You know, I think that's the funny thing about I've been thinking a lot about how time works or doesn't work, you know, and I think it's, it's

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Jasmine Wade: And I also think just reading about you know how

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Jasmine Wade: kind of work, in which time is collapsing on itself is kind of not a straight line, but more like this blob that we've

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Jasmine Wade: been watching a lot of the flash where they just disrespect time entirely. It's just, there so disrespectful.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah, they're

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Jasmine Wade: Really interesting, right. Um, but yeah, I think sci fi kind of lends itself really well to moments like this and thinking about, oh, well, what can we do not to say that we have kind of a

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Jasmine Wade: A blueprint, but I do think moments like this have been imagined and there might be some something to learn from, say, Octavia Butler about how to handle something that feels like a dystopian or something that feels like an apocalypse.

Anna Ward: Right, right.

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Anna Ward: Yeah. What would Octavia say

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Anna Ward: right now?

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Jasmine Wade: She would say, I told you so. To be honest

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Anna Ward: I'll take some more awards, please cause I totally called it.

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Anna Ward: Yeah, absolutely. So, so what would again. Easy question, but in addition to maybe helping people to

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Anna Ward: you know value kind of dreaming more right and encouraging people to do that. What about this moment.

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Anna Ward: What do you want to get rid of, like, what do you want to leave behind? What do you want to say like, okay, Corona, you have this you keep this cause this, this wasn't working, anyway.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah.

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Jasmine Wade: I think my big, big dream that Corona will take the healthcare system.

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Anna Ward: And is my um

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Jasmine Wade: I will be able to do something that actually works as a as a people. Um,

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Jasmine Wade: And I, yeah, that would be great. Um, that's big, big dreaming, though. That's like

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Anna Ward: That's okay.

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Jasmine Wade: Um

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I’m Dreaming

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Anna Ward: Okay.

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Jasmine Wade: on a local level. I don't know. He was funny because I've even been thinking about like alternatives to toilet paper.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah, it does not too much like TMI, but like

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Anna Ward: Whoa no, yeah.

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Jasmine Wade: Just thinking like

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Jasmine Wade: Sustainable type.

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Jasmine Wade: of living, you know, um, and I think also thinking about, okay, if I, if we take this kind of toilet paper as an as an object and then imagine my timeline in which we are all inside until November.

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Jasmine Wade: Right. Um, well, yeah, that doesn't that doesn't really feel like the life that I want to live so

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Jasmine Wade: What, what does life look like post toilet paper. I don't know.

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Anna Ward: Post toilet paper. You know what, I think that would be a perfect submission for your website right

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Anna Ward: There's like various ways to contextualize. Obviously, there's the bidet route.

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Jasmine Wade: Right, right, right.

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Anna Ward: So, We could see some advancements maybe proceeding on that, then of course, you have a water, waste thing, right.

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Jasmine Wade: So like some some body. And I wonder if, like, what would a port is a portable bidet a thing. I don't know, actually.

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Anna Ward: I say you can just attach to the your existing toilet. So I guess.

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Jasmine Wade: What if you're out and about.

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Anna Ward: You mean, like

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Anna Ward: Really portable

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Anna Ward: Portable portable like the meaning of that word no. Um, yeah, I don't know, I, yeah, I don't think so. It's my it's my guess so

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Jasmine Wade: Somebody should work that up.

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Anna Ward: Somebody should work that out. All right, I'm really glad that I've gotten your perspective on bidet’s.

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Anna Ward: You're probably not expecting that of this interview.

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Anna Ward: So my apologies. But that's but that's real like, I feel like that's part of what people are kind of toggling between is like healthcare systems, climate change, disaster scenarios like these big, big, big questions and then like

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Anna Ward: You know how long before this flour goes bad that I bought way too much of right like these really practical daily questions of

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Anna Ward: adjusting and that's some of what I like about some of the work that's coming out of disability justice communities right is

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Anna Ward: kind of thinking about these this kind of macro micro levels that that folks with various kinds of disabilities have been thinking about for a long time. Right.

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Anna Ward: Like get your bug out kind of system straight right in case you're not able to leave the house because you're immunocompromised or whatever it is.

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Anna Ward: But then, of course, these huge structural questions of, yeah, we're going to need to get rid of the health care system. That's it. So I've been really appreciating all of the kind of imagining and stuff that's coming out of that work online, especially activists and whatnot.

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Anna Ward: So,

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Anna Ward: I guess what

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Anna Ward: What are you hoping that people kind of walk away with when they when, when they actually are able to kind of get their hands on some of these amazing submissions that you've gotten and the kind of larger body of work of yours. What are you hoping people

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Anna Ward: leave with? or

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Anna Ward: Or a student right and engaging with this work. I mean, however you want to

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Anna Ward: conceptualize or as you move into the community spaces. Right. What do you want people to feel?

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Jasmine Wade: I hope people feel

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Jasmine Wade: Empowered

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Jasmine Wade: And I'm thinking of a and I'm taking this disclaimer, I'm taking this out of context, but in Sharon Holland’s

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Jasmine Wade: What was that book? The Erotics of Racism.

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Jasmine Wade: She very briefly talks about how

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Jasmine Wade: White people own time.

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Jasmine Wade: And

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Jasmine Wade: Black folks in particular.

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Jasmine Wade: Can't like just don't have access to a kind of ownership over time. And so the question she poses like what does it mean for a person who owns time to encounter someone who exists only in space.

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Jasmine Wade: And I think about that, that it's paraphrased. It's like not a quote but I think about that a lot. That concept of of who owns time? Who is in charge of

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Jasmine Wade: Time and what does it mean? I think about dreaming the future as a as a way to and I want to say a small way, but it's also not a small way um to steal a little bit of ownership of time.

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Jasmine Wade: You know and I so I hope and I this is partly why I'm trying to have the archive be a space where it's not just academics and artists, but where kind of anyone can can dream up ideas and

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Jasmine Wade: where anyone can submit what they think might happen in the future, whether it be kind of big picture or locally, you know, for their own lives.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah.

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Jasmine Wade: I lost my train of thought on that one, but yeah that's that's what I'm thinking. I think right now. It's like, what does it mean to have a sense of agency.

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Jasmine Wade: In time.

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Anna Ward: Right, right. So, so, the idea being that the people that encounter this work will kind of walk away with feeling like they can snatch a little bit of time back

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah yeah

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Jasmine Wade: Which I think is, is kind of what I feel like Saidiya Hartman was doing

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Jasmine Wade: Maybe, I don't know that she would say that that's what she was doing but

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Jasmine Wade: That's how it read to me.

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Anna Ward: Right.

Jasmine Wade: Like, it felt like she was

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah, like, doing, doing a little stealing something or or reclaiming something or

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Jasmine Wade: Something and it's weird to do that with something intangible like time but I think that's what was happening.

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Anna Ward: So my last question is sort of what's next and what do you need to kind of see this thing?

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Jasmine Wade: So,

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Jasmine Wade: next steps. We are accepting submissions to the archive on a rolling basis. So kind of submit whatever whenever I'm constantly checking the email.

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Jasmine Wade: So yeah, I think it's that's always going to be up I

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Jasmine Wade: I am moving into a different phase of it, rather than trying to

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Jasmine Wade: get people to submit. I'm trying to create situations with like workshops or guest lecturing situations where there's a bunch of people in in a space.

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Jasmine Wade: Where they might create something for the archive and I tested this out in my class at Sac State recently and they came and my students came up with some beautiful, beautiful things. I mean, I'm like, I was like, sobbing reading

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Jasmine Wade: So exciting.

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Jasmine Wade: Yeah, so I more of that and and and also just kind of seeing what's already been done because I think I don't I don't want people to walk away from from my website, thinking that

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Jasmine Wade: You know this work isn't already happening.

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Jasmine Wade: It is it and I feel like I'm stepping into a genealogy of

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Jasmine Wade: People who have been dreaming up the future for, you know, a long time now.

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Jasmine Wade: And so I'm trying to like kind of find find those folks and either, you know, at least be in conversation, if not find things to put in the archive.

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Anna Ward: Right, right. And, and you've got a when people go to the website and I think sign up right for the like the

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Jasmine Wade: The prompt book, yes.

Anna Ward: Yeah, they get a prompt book as well.

Jasmine Wade: Yes.

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Anna Ward: Yeah, so, so there are some ways in which people can be kind of

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Anna Ward: helped out, let's say,

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Jasmine Wade: There are so if you sign up for the mailing list on the website, then you will, I will email you a prompt book. I am also regularly posting prompts on Instagram.

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Jasmine Wade: Don't Appear in the prompt book. So there are two separate kind of sets of of ideas, the next batch on Instagram will probably be covid 19 related

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Anna Ward: Right, okay. Alright, so what we're gonna do is is when we post this video will of course link your, your website.

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Anna Ward: I guess link your Instagram. So you've got that to look forward

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Anna Ward: to a lot of random followers. Now, and then we'll also

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Anna Ward: link up some of the texts that you mentioned. So people that want to explore all these these things that were so generative for you can take a look at these things. And then, of course, if you think of anything else after the fact that you go oh people have got to read this or watch this.

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Anna Ward: I also, I do. I lied. I have one more question for you. Jasmine wade the one thing, not the one thing, one of the many things that we have in common is of course the love of pop culture.

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Jasmine Wade: Yes.

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Anna Ward: So obviously there's a little bit of Janelle Monet shoutout

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Jasmine Wade: Yes.

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Anna Ward: Going on, but is there is there any other kind of pop culture that you feel like people need to be watching or listening to that you found to be particularly generative for this project.

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Jasmine Wade: I have been thinking and and also re watching a lot of there's just been kind of a flurry of maybe maybe flurry is a strong word, there's been a number of

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Jasmine Wade: movies and TV shows lately that center young black women as being like the key to saving the world.

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Jasmine Wade: In a way that like is not necessarily

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Jasmine Wade: They don't necessarily read as heroes. It's not, you know, it's not the Avengers where it's like, oh, I'm here to save the world. It's not like that. It's uh, you know, it's not even T’challa you know it's it's

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Jasmine Wade: That's

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Jasmine Wade: The Passage

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Jasmine Wade: which aired on Fox. I think for a season, which is

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Jasmine Wade: The actress who who plays the the main character is just stellar like oh my gosh I wish her all the hopes and good vibes and hope she has many, many, many more acting things um

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Jasmine Wade: and the girl with all the gifts.

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Jasmine Wade: Zombie movie a little bit scary, real talk. I didn't see certain scenes, because I just, you know,

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Jasmine Wade: But it's still, it's so good. It's, it's and it's a zombie movie, unlike anything I've ever seen.

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Jasmine Wade: So there's that. Um,

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Jasmine Wade: what does that will be called in The Shadow of The Moon?

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Jasmine Wade: You know that one?

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Anna Ward: I think that's right

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Jasmine Wade: I think it's on Netflix. Yeah. Someone with the so the pitch that someone gave to me to go watch it was like it's a futuristic Kindred

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Jasmine Wade: Octavia Butler’s kindred, and so I was like oh

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Jasmine Wade: That's, you know,

Anna Ward: Say no more.

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Jasmine Wade: That's a good one.

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Jasmine Wade: Um. Oh, there's one. Oh, and of course Fast Color. I think fast color is a beautiful movie that

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Jasmine Wade: Has absolutely been been sitting with me in part, because there is no like save the world plot. It's just like

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Jasmine Wade: I think just people trying to live.

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Jasmine Wade: Which, you know, I think this is a really important part, I, I hope of the archive just kind of that local day to day

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Jasmine Wade: What are we doing about toilet paper kind of questions.

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Jasmine Wade: That are just important for for life.

Anna Ward: Yeah.

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Anna Ward: All right, well,

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Anna Ward: there we go. Now, you've also given people for things that they can they can do and you know in all of their free time right now.

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Anna Ward: Well it was really good to talk with you Jasmine and thank you so much for taking a little break from the whole exam thing coming up.

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Anna Ward: And been an absolute pleasure to work with you this year in terms of the the Graduate Fellowship for FRI and we'll shout out your website and the readings that we talked about as well and

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Anna Ward: Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing how this project develops and and where it goes and

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Anna Ward: Yeah, really looking forward to seeing it continue to evolve and how you, how you respond as I know you will creatively to this strange moment. So it was really good to chat with you, Jasmine.

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Jasmine Wade: Thank you.

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Anna Ward: See you soon.

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Anna Ward: Hopefully in person.

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Jasmine Wade: Yes.