The Internet of Things exhibition project concludes with an open conversation featuring artist and filmmaker Jihan El-Tahri. Taking her body of work as a point of departure, we think together about cancelled futures, revisit moments of possibility in the history of anti-colonial struggle, and grapple with what she describes as “the process of losing the dream.” Looking at moments of independence and their promise of another possible world, we extricate from these histories that which continues to be at stake today, or that which endures in our present-day engagement with futurity. A consideration of the failures of the postcolonial state gives way to a meditation on how we might conceive of “possibility” and what a radical politics might look like in light of the incumbent global moment. 

Jihan El-Tahri is an artist, filmmaker, author and news correspondent. She has authored, directed and produced award-winning documentary films, authored books and reported on political conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. Jihan is a Member of the Executive Bureau of FEPACI (Federation of Pan-African Cinema) and Secretary General of The Guild of African Filmmakers in the Diaspora. She was a correspondent/super stringer for US News & World Report covering the Middle East while residing in France. The main stories covered were: Return of Yasser Arafat to Gaza, Algerian Elections, Madrid Peace Conference, Desert Shield and Desert Storm (Gulf War). Jihan was also the Tunis Special Correspondent for the Washington Post, The Financial Time (London), The main stories covered were the PLO, Islamic Movements and Algeria.