Interviewing Future
Selves
An art project by Nina Beckhardt
Concept
I interview people as future versions of themselves that they choose and we co-create.
Once we’ve decided on who they’d like to be interviewed as, I email them to request an interview. However, I’m not emailing them as I know them and as they know me. I address their future self as the Senior Editor of Interviewing Selves (IS) magazine. From that email onward and through the interview, we both remain fully in character. Their chosen future selves range from serious to fanciful. There are no limitations—only possibilities.
Inspiration
I get high on witnessing other people feel possibility.
I love nothing more than when people share a new idea with me—seeing them feel the rush of possibility as they say it aloud. This love eventually gave way to this art project that is as much improv as it is journalism: Interviewing Future Selves (IFS).
These are the five people who I interviewed for the inaugural issue of Interviewing Selves magazine. Below I describe how I know them, who they are in the present day, and when the interview with their future self takes place.
Jane Dorotik was introduced to me by a good friend of mine, Molly Greene. Jane and Molly knew each other through organizing around criminal justice issues in LA. When interviewing Jane in 2022, she was living in Hawthorne, CA and an active prisoners’ rights advocate and criminal justice reformer. Her interview is on June 6th, 2027.
India Ballinger is a friend, artist and student living with her father in Glassell Park, Los Angeles. She was 10 years old when I interviewed her in 2022. Her interview is on June 12th, 2047.
Brett Fleisher is one of my dearest friends. At the time of his interview in 2022 he was 37 years old, a food-frenzied, percussive and passionate community curator, teacher and somatic practitioner living in Highland Park, Los Angeles. His interview is on June 9th, 2064.
Robert Beckhardt is my dad, a retired psychiatrist, artist, and poet. When I interviewed him in 2022, he was 75 years old and living in Barnet, Vermont. His interview is on June 20th, 2028.
Anne Bahr Thompson is a longtime friend and mentor I’ve known since living in New York City in the 2010’s. She is a consultant, award-winning thought-leader, author and international speaker. Her interview is on June 30th, 2028.