— Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993)

This selection of videos is inspired by the writings of author Octavia E. Butler, as they explore the enigma of what it means to be human, at the crossroads of constraints, choices, systems, violence and experience that shape existences. How to situate oneself when the world is in flux? How to remain human in the face of inhumanity? As our era urges us to question the meaning of our presence, the works gathered here offer hypotheses about our capacity to act, imagine, produce and reinvent. These works are meditations on the structures that surround us, and the possibility of rethinking these frameworks. Conceived as an ode to the liberation of the imagination, this selection treats the unknown and the uncertain as fertile territories, precisely because they remain imaginable. These films propose a conversation about how we invent and inhabit our lives. Faithful to Lauren Olamina, the main character imagined by visionary Octavia E. Butler, they also call for cultivating empathy as a key to a desirable future.