As a showcase to Indigenous science fiction authors, scholars, and artists, ALMA in Downtown Tacoma will host the Indigenous Futurisms Festival Northwest (IFFNW) Friday and Saturday, June 9-10. While admission is free and open to all, registration is encouraged.

IFFNW will showcase award-winning First Nations and First American scholars, artists and other Native creators from the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There will be an interactive programming highlighting musicians, painters, instruction on making tabletop role playing games (TTRPG), podcasts, discussions with elders, children’s activities and many live performances.

“IFFNW will help dispel contemporary misrepresentations of who they are today. We are thrilled to collaborate with ALMA as a safe and welcoming gathering spot that channels, celebrates, and seeks to nourish the soul of this land, the people on it, the people from it, and those just passing through.”

Kristin Gentry (Choctaw), says Native Realities’ Director of Community Engagement and Outreach

What is Indigenous Futurism? Dr. Grace Dillon, editor of Walking the Clouds, and Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction, coined the term to describe literature, comics, art, fashion, and other media that seek a way forward through fantastical and speculative imaginings that hold close to values of relationship, integrity, interconnection, and balance. Dillon chose the term in homage to Afrofuturism, which is an “examination of how Black culture intersects with technology and the African diaspora.”

Examples of other Indigenous Futurists works include Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirited and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction, and The Marrow Thieves.

The Facebook event page for IFFNW can be found here.