Marianna B. Ferreira-Aulu
The story of the musical “Joki”, written and composed by Juuso Peippo, happens here in the Turku region, and the year is 2129. The city as we know today is not the same. Most of the lowlands have been flooded by sea-level rise, and the 7 hills around today’s city of Turku have become islands.
In the beginning of the performance the audience is taken to 2129 by a series of newspaper headlines, images of futures that compose the possible coming of events, among these famine, pandemics, wars, unstable energy systems, and finally a cultural-societal return to “Middle Ages way of life”. This way of life includes going back to an agricultural patriarchic society, where women have no voice or political rights.
Here in Finland Futures Research Centre, we also use the technique of newspaper headlines to illustrate possible future events. It is an easy way to grasp people´s attention and ideate possible futures. Jim Dator says the best scenarios are those that make us laugh. Could this post-apocalyptic future created by Peippo be laughable? Well, yes of course. Peippo and his artists brilliantly convey the tragic future scenario with a whip of humor, hilarious face expressions, plastic guns, and clumsy choreographies.
For me, the best piece of art is one that tickles your brains, get you out of your comfort zone, make you laugh and think outside your common mundane thoughts of the everyday. This, my friends, is done beautifully in Joki.
For every song, the background of the stage changed with a different image of “Turku in 2129”. I assume these were a mix of stock photos and AI generated images, but I do not know more at this point.
As a futures expert, it was annoying not to be able to stop analyzing the scenarios and just enjoy the show. I wish our department was invited to cooperate with them, and I am sure any of our students or staff would have done amazing consultancy work for the creation of scenarios and for the AI generated images of future Turku.
As an antiracist scholar, I missed the intercultural aspect of Turku being considered in the scenarios. They did talk about “Åbo peoples” as a different cultural group than the “Turunmaa peoples” – an analogy of Turku being today a bilingual city. However, what about the various other cultures that have always lived here? I find very unfeasible, and uncomfortable, that only ethnic Finns would survive to 2129…
Putting my activism aside, the main problem of the musical Joki is that they only have 2 performances. Their first show was yesterday, and the last one is already today. This is such a fun performance; I wish more people would be able to see it too.
The main message that stuck for me, is that power struggles, love, hate for the unknown or misunderstood, and family dramas are so fundamental human behaviors, it does not matter what setting of scenario, these stay the same in our society. In the end women save the day with preserved ancient knowledge and knowhow. The future is female.
If you have time for an extempore Thursday night activity, do not miss the final performance of Joki. More information in this link: https://www.linnateatteri.fi/events/joki-musikaali-turusta/
Marianna B. Ferreira-Aulu
Doctoral Researcher
Finland Futures Research Centre
Picture: Linnateatteri
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