We have sent this letter out to writers, artists, thinkers, scientists, politicians, business people, etc. all over the world. The letter ends by asking for a response, a contribution. This contribution can be anything: a photograph, a piece of music, an object, a short text, a drawing or painting, a film or video, or perhaps something we haven’t even thought of yet.

We would like to learn something about the possibilities for critical optimism in the twenty-first century, understanding critical optimism both on an intimate personal level and in relation to the larger socio-economic realities of our times.

One aspect of the anthology is this website. It is a website that will continue to grow and shift the more contributions we receive. Like optimism itself it will, hopefully, continue to grow and change.

Another aspect of the anthology is a performance. Using the contributions we receive as a framework for our own realizations and reflections upon the theme, we will delightfully enact an ongoing process of research into how optimism actually functions.

An Anthology of Optimism is created and performed by Pieter De Buysser and Jacob Wren. It is produced by Campo, Gent (B) and coproduced by Linz 2009 Kulturhauptstadt Europas (A), Brut Wien (A), Camp X Kopenhagen (DK) and the KunstenFestivalDesArts 2009.