Is This Tomorrow?

The Bagri Foundation has supported a new work by artist Rana Begum and architect Marina Tabassum, called Phoenix Will Rise, in the exhibition Is This Tomorrow? at the Whitechapel Gallery from 14 February to 12 May.

In an era when humanity is facing new challenges posed by big data, bioengineering and climate change, Whitechapel Gallery has invited ten groups of artists and architects to explore the potential of collaboration and offer their visions of the future. They imagine scenarios in which queer desire, house music and fracking meet on a mountainside; grief and microbes generate new possibilities for housing; or machines dispense objects and emotions to support our place in the technological world of tomorrow.

Is This Tomorrow? takes as its model Whitechapel Gallery’s landmark exhibition This Is Tomorrow (1956), which featured 37 British architects, painters and sculptors – including Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi and Alison and Peter Smithson – working collaboratively in small groups.

Is This Tomorrow? features experimental propositions from some of today’s leading architects and artists responding to issues we face in the 21st century from natural resources and migration to technology and spirituality. Their experiential projects take the form of environments, models, structures and systems, incorporating artworks, objects, film and graphics.

The exhibition features 6a architects, Adjaye Associates, APPARATA, Rachel Armstrong, Rana Begum, Tatiana Bilbao Estudio, Cao Fei, Mariana Castillo Deball, Cécile B. Evans, Simon Fujiwara, Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation, Kapwani Kiwanga, David Kohn Architects, mono office, Farshid Moussavi Architecture, Hardeep Pandhal, Amalia Pica, Jacolby Satterwhite, Zineb Sedira and Marina Tabassum Architects.