The Next Forever Initiative  /

A New Program
Dedicated to Environmental Topics

The Next Forever Initiative explores our relationship to the environment through the development of new plays and art inspired by real stories and scientific research. These new works will serve as a nation-wide call to action that will encourage a re-examination of our relationship to the environment and inspire the new ways of thinking needed to guide us through the "next forever."

The Initiative cultivates new plays, films, video and audio series, and more that deepen our understanding of vital environmental topics. The Initiative will bring our country’s most ingenious artists together with the world’s brightest scientific minds to create thought-provoking and entertaining new work that focuses on conservation, energy, climate, land use, agriculture, the environmental sciences, and other vital subjects. The pieces will inspire people across the country to become more engaged with these environmental issues and act in ways that protect our natural resources. The power of the arts to inspire change cannot be underestimated. Information alone is not enough to inspire the large changes that must be made in the coming years to protect our future on this planet. As Naomi Klein said in her recent TED Talk:

We badly need some new stories. We need stories that have different kinds of heroes willing to take different kinds of risks. Risks that confront recklessness head-on, that put the precautionary principle into practice – even if that means through direct action. Like the hundreds of young people willing to get arrested blocking dirty power plants, or fighting mountain top removal coal mining. We need stories that replace that linear narrative of endless growth with circular narratives that remind us that what goes around comes around, that this is our only home. There is no escape hatch. Call it Karma. Call it Physics: action and reaction. Call it precaution. The Principle that reminds us that life is too precious to be risked for any profit.

The first project in the program, The Great Immensity, takes on the environmental crisis inspired by interviews conducted in Barro Colorado Island and Churchill, Canada with scientists, researchers, and locals, and is supported by a rare and prestigious grant from the National Science Foundation. Please visit The Great Immensity' Environmental Website HERE. Here is an episode from our Skype Interview Series for the project, featuring Louie Psihoyos, Academy Award-winning director of The Cove

For more videos made for The Great Immensity, click HERE!