Good Luck With The Future
Authors: Rita Puig-Serra & Dani Pujalte
Edition 500
120 pages
200 mm ax 270 mm.
ISBN: 978-84-617-9587-1
Good Luck with the Future is a journey of infinite paths, with a critical starting point and an uncertain destiny. It began as an exploration on how our generation lives and feels the future, to finish in an attempt to discover how do we perceive it ourselves. The project is about what could be, and what will be, although we don't know yet. What will never be, and also of what has been suddenly, without expecting it.Good Luck With The Future is an ongoing collaborative project between Dani Pujalte and Rita Puig-Serra that has been developed in the last 2 years. Both born in late 80's, they explore through a poetic journey, feelings and expectations of their generation about the future. Uncertain, unknow and sometime scary.
"Good luck with the future is a journey of infinite paths, with a critical starting point and an uncertain destiny. It began as an exploration on how our generation lives and feels the future, to finish in an attempt to discover how do we perceive it ourselves. The project is about what could be, and what will be, although we do not know yet. What will never be, and also of what has been suddenly, without expecting it."
Rita Puig-Serra lives and works in Barcelona. After studying Humanities and a master in Comparative Literature, she studies Graphic Design in IDEP and Photography in CFD and El Observatorio. Her first project “Where Mimosa Bloom” was published in 2014 by Editions du Lic. She received with Dani Pujalte the grant 20ª Fotopres La Caixa to produce the work Good Luck With The Future. She recently start a project with Salvi Danés and David Bestué with the support of Terralab.cat.
Dani Pujalte lives and works in Barcelona where he combines personal projects, assignments, and curating at Wer-Haus gallery&bookshop. His projects revolve around personal exploration as a tool to tackle cultural and social issues. His work has been published in Studio Vortex, Laboratori among other publications. He recently won the grant Fotopres La Caixa to work in the project “Good Luck with the Future” with Rita Puig-Ser
The Fears and Hopes of a Generation
In their latest book Good Luck With The Future, Rita Puig-Serra Costa and Dani Pujalte portray the state of uncertainty of those turning thirty in these days.
© Rita Puig-Serra Costa and Dani Pujalate, from the book, Good Luck With The Future
Highways, buildings. Thousands of cars. Where are these people going? Where am I going? Pyramids, robots, laser rays. The future is uncertain by definition, so why worry about it?
As I turn the pages of Rita and Dani's book over and over again, many questions cross my mind. I empathise with them. We are European. We are more or less the same age: thirty something. When we started to embrace our future around ten years ago, the Western world was entering the biggest financial crisis of modern times. Ever since those days, a sense of precariousness has accompanied our generation. Unemployment. Companies, banks and even states going bankrupt. More recently terrorism, migration, and climate change. At the same time we have been privileged compared to previous generations, and most people of our age around the world. We haven't lived through war. We can travel easily. Technology, the Internet and Social Media have opened up new, unprecedented opportunities.
As I turn the pages I imagine this is the context in which, back in 2014, Rita and Dani - while approaching that age at which you should have a stable job and thinking about having children - decided to face their fear of the future and started a six month journey with no predefined destination. That journey and those years end up in their book, Good Luck With The Future. Yet the journey is not the main focus of this project; it is rather simply an excuse to put their lives on hold and live a sort of extended present - a 180 day parenthesis between the past and the future. It's here that the story begins and you get dragged into this visual exploration towards that sense of uncertainty and something so ephemeral as the future.
© Rita Puig-Serra Costa and Dani Pujalate, from the book, Good Luck With The Future
While looking at these pictures you often feel lost and hopeless. An emergency exit, a labyrinth, a trapped butterfly. A young guy looking at the water of what seems to be a lake. There is a sense of emptiness and resignation in the air. But the book's structure is there to help you. Divided into six chapters - Abolute past, Relative past, Here, And Now, Relative future, Absolute future - it invites you to stop and reflect. See the future starting from the past. Or reverse: to analyse your past starting from where you think or wish to head to. The images do not suggest any clear answers; but however you look at it, this project seems to invite you to take some time to reflect about where you are coming from, where you are, and where you are heading to.
Is this thread sufficient to guide the biggest waves of freelancers of all time who have been dreaming of working 4 hours a day while looking at the Indian Ocean from their laptop? No. Nevertheless what originally seemed to me as a book of emptiness and resignation is turning into a book of hope. It evokes a famous latin adage: unusquisque faber fortunae suae. We are the maker of our own destiny, and we should take responsibility for that, especially if we are in our late 20s or early 30s. Traditional jobs are disappearing, social tensions are increasing as wealth is less and less equally distributed. Yet there is not other option that facing the future and dealing with the issues of our time, as staring soullessly at the horizon won't help that much - apart for some likes on Instagram.
© Rita Puig-Serra Costa and Dani Pujalate, from the book, Good Luck With The Future
Maybe it's normal to feel lost in your late 20s or just something that might happen and you should be ready to face. I turn the page of the book one last time and then I leave it closed on the table. It's only in that moment that I notice the grey message on the black back cover. It says: "Sorry it's taken me 5 months to answer your questions. From the moment I found love, thanks to your lucky coin, to the moment I lost it, at my arrival in Mexico, my life has been chaos. But anyways, that's just another story. (...) The lucky coin just keeps on bringing me more luck ever since the trip we did together. It's nice to think that love does exist and that it can be shared forever. This, I learn from you." Lorelay.
Ok, it's a book of hope or at least I wish to think so. And it leaves me with one final question: in the daily maze of uncertainty and opportunities, is love - found and lost - the only certainty we can rely on?
Maybe. Good luck with the future.
In their latest book Good Luck With The Future, Rita Puig-Serra Costa and Dani Pujalte portray the state of uncertainty of those turning thirty in these days.
Highways, buildings. Thousands of cars. Where are these people going? Where am I going? Pyramids, robots, laser rays. The future is uncertain by definition, so why worry about it?
As I turn the pages of Rita and Dani's book over and over again, many questions cross my mind. I empathise with them. We are European. We are more or less the same age: thirty something. When we started to embrace our future around ten years ago, the Western world was entering the biggest financial crisis of modern times. Ever since those days, a sense of precariousness has accompanied our generation. Unemployment. Companies, banks and even states going bankrupt. More recently terrorism, migration, and climate change. At the same time we have been privileged compared to previous generations, and most people of our age around the world. We haven't lived through war. We can travel easily. Technology, the Internet and Social Media have opened up new, unprecedented opportunities.
As I turn the pages I imagine this is the context in which, back in 2014, Rita and Dani - while approaching that age at which you should have a stable job and thinking about having children - decided to face their fear of the future and started a six month journey with no predefined destination. That journey and those years end up in their book, Good Luck With The Future. Yet the journey is not the main focus of this project; it is rather simply an excuse to put their lives on hold and live a sort of extended present - a 180 day parenthesis between the past and the future. It's here that the story begins and you get dragged into this visual exploration towards that sense of uncertainty and something so ephemeral as the future.
While looking at these pictures you often feel lost and hopeless. An emergency exit, a labyrinth, a trapped butterfly. A young guy looking at the water of what seems to be a lake. There is a sense of emptiness and resignation in the air. But the book's structure is there to help you. Divided into six chapters - Abolute past, Relative past, Here, And Now, Relative future, Absolute future - it invites you to stop and reflect. See the future starting from the past. Or reverse: to analyse your past starting from where you think or wish to head to. The images do not suggest any clear answers; but however you look at it, this project seems to invite you to take some time to reflect about where you are coming from, where you are, and where you are heading to.
Is this thread sufficient to guide the biggest waves of freelancers of all time who have been dreaming of working 4 hours a day while looking at the Indian Ocean from their laptop? No. Nevertheless what originally seemed to me as a book of emptiness and resignation is turning into a book of hope. It evokes a famous latin adage: unusquisque faber fortunae suae. We are the maker of our own destiny, and we should take responsibility for that, especially if we are in our late 20s or early 30s. Traditional jobs are disappearing, social tensions are increasing as wealth is less and less equally distributed. Yet there is not other option that facing the future and dealing with the issues of our time, as staring soullessly at the horizon won't help that much - apart for some likes on Instagram.
Maybe it's normal to feel lost in your late 20s or just something that might happen and you should be ready to face. I turn the page of the book one last time and then I leave it closed on the table. It's only in that moment that I notice the grey message on the black back cover. It says: "Sorry it's taken me 5 months to answer your questions. From the moment I found love, thanks to your lucky coin, to the moment I lost it, at my arrival in Mexico, my life has been chaos. But anyways, that's just another story. (...) The lucky coin just keeps on bringing me more luck ever since the trip we did together. It's nice to think that love does exist and that it can be shared forever. This, I learn from you." Lorelay.
Ok, it's a book of hope or at least I wish to think so. And it leaves me with one final question: in the daily maze of uncertainty and opportunities, is love - found and lost - the only certainty we can rely on?
Maybe. Good luck with the future.
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