About the author

Kimberly Skye Richards is a scholar and dramaturg who engages performance as a vehicle for resisting extractivism, inspiring just transitions, and moving through impasses. She obtained a PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California-Berkeley in 2019, and she was a 2021 Public Energy Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow in Transition in Energy, Culture, and Society at University of Alberta. She currently teaching in the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media at the University of British Columbia and is the librarian for the Department of Utopian Arts and Letters.

Additional resources

• Letter from a Farmer of the Future Peace by Rita Wong and Hiromi Goto (thesocialjusticecentre.org).

• Larry Bogad (2013), “Tactical Performance: Thinking Theatrically for Powerful Protest,” TEDxTalk.

• The Beautiful Trouble toolbox: Beautiful Trouble (beautifultrouble.org).

• Yes Men hijinks: All Hijinks... Ever | The Yes Men.

• The Yes Men Fix the World: The Yes Men Fix the World – P2P Edition (youtube.com).

• Yes Men on Dow Chemical: Yes Men on Dow Chemical (artforum.com).

• An example of a press conference from the future by the Ministry of Just Transition Collective: The year is 2025, and a Just Transition has transformed Canada ⋆ The Breach (breachmedia.ca).

Author’s note

I created an assignment in which we would co-create a newspaper containing stories of the news we wanted to see in the world, but even the discussion of who “we” were in this class required some critical reflection. Some of these stories were more desirable than others, depending on students’ positionality, to be sure, but we collectively agreed we would like to hear stories of local iterations of the repatriation of Indigenous land; decolonized governance structures with Indigenous leaders at the helm; missing Indigenous women and two-spirit people found safe; the death of pipelines; re-allocation of funding towards solar panels and remediation of impacted ecosystems; progressive policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; breakthroughs in alternative energy research and uptake; reparations for laborers harmed by the lack of workplace safety, etcetera. These news stories—whether humorous or serious in tone—would tell accounts of demands being met and progressive policies being implemented, thanks to popular pressure. Students researched Indigenous, decolonial, and anti-racist futures being proposed and fought for by movement leaders, identified the political and structural barriers to making those futures possible, and crafted stories about their undoing.

Contact details

Kimberly is interested in speaking to live audiences. You can contact her via this email.

Kimberly’s website: https://jwam.ubc.ca/profile/kimberly-richards/.