Thesis

Future Tense

An in-progress MFA thesis.

Hello! For those of you who may not know me, my name is Samuel Case (he/they). I’m a multidisciplinary artist in Seattle, Washington, and I'm currently working on my Masters of Fine Art thesis. If you’re reading this, someone sent this to you because I asked folx to share out, to help me collect stories for my thesis project. My hope is to collect stories and insights to help guide both my written and artistic thesis projects to be completed in the summer of 2025. 

If you’d like to contribute to the project, please take this quiz!

https://forms.gle/vSzd69MNiGzbNByb7

The working title for my thesis is Future Tense. I chose this for a few reasons (not least of all for the much sought after double entendre).

Tense; noun: a part of speech indicating temporal relationships.

Tense; verb: To tighten. To lock up. To draw in.

Tense; adjective: an emotional state- discomfort, worry, or angst.

I am someone who spends a lot of time studying the past. I always have been. As a queer artist, my work has often drawn from LGBTQIA2S+ history. I’ve mined our history and used fabulation to investigate our shared past and to insert Queer figures anachronistically into other times and spaces. Until recently, I didn’t think much of why that was so important to me. It seemed so obvious that a gay person would want to know about Queer history! It was only recently that I realized that I never think about my future.

A common symptom of complex PTSD is something called ‘a sense of foreshortened future’. The condition is described as a loss of trust in the world, a feeling that you might die young or may not have a family or career.

Growing up there was no roadmap to queer adulthood for me. I grew up during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in America. I’m in the first generation of gay men to come of age after the peak that tragedy - young enough that I grew up learning about how to prevent AIDS, but before options  like PrEP were available. I grew up almost completely isolated from any aspects of queer culture. The few stories that made it to me were filled with loss and ‘bury your gays’ plot lines. There were no elders, no one who made it much past their 30’s.

I’ve lived my life, like many queer folk, on uncertain ground. With few positive examples of what our lives can be, and with near constant attacks on our lives and communities, it’s understandable that there would be difficulty imagining a future for ourselves.

So, my friend, help me imagine one. Put the past away. Look beyond the threats and worries of today. Let's stare into the future— hopefully, mournfully, defiantly. It may be dark. It may be so bright that it brings tears to our eyes. I want to be there next to you, facing whatever it is. Let’s hold hands and imagine what the future holds.