125 x 200mm, 112 pages, black and white printing, perfect bound, 2021

In the long-form science-fiction poem, In Short, Future Now, Jason Wee, an artist, and writer, paints a picture of Asia as a place of flooded ruins, mobile islands, and a period of self-reflection and repair. Wee takes inspiration from renga and haiku forms and posits in this volume how one can break free from the vicious cycle of power struggle set against a backdrop of post-authoritarian and post-climate-disaster Asian islands. In his poem sequence, Asia appears as an archive of the future, which is always on the brink of its coming.

This book is supported by the 2020 art project "Curtain", a long-term art project conceived by Larys Frogier. Beyond the definition of an exhibition, the project aims to expand the dialogue with artists by gathering critical thinkers and practitioners from other social and cultural fields. As a fruit of such a conception, this poem of Wee's was a finalist for the Gaudy Boy Poetry Prize. An excerpt was longlisted for the Frontier Digital Chapbook Prize (2020). Various poem sequences appeared in SAND Berlin, Cordite, and exquisite pandemic.

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