Navigating Native Slipstream and Indigenous Futurism: Upending Western Tropes in Pakistani Speculative Art

Abstract

This research article delves into the concept of native slipstream and its interrelation with Pakistani speculative fiction art, with a particular focus on Omar Gilani’s award-winning sci-fi artistic productions. Grounded in Dillon’s critical theoretical framework on indigenous futurism expounded in Walking the Clouds (2012), this study seeks to challenge and decolonize the genre by subverting Eurocentric science fiction tropes and fostering an Indigenous perspective within the seemingly colonized precinct of sci-fi digital art. Through the concept of Native slipstream, this paper envisions a futuristic portrayal of Pakistani culture, creating a distinct Pakistani version of sci-fi art that challenges the dominance of mainstream Western sci-fi. This artistic study attempts to examine the futuristic discourses in Gilani’s artworks, critique the social dilemmas and AI-dominated future, the dependency of AI humans, and the gradual downfall of AI. The paper aims to scrutinize the contrivances employed by Pakistani artists, the nature of contemporary subject matters and artistic parameters evolved in the visionary future’s depiction, the way native slipstream reworks in the process of decolonization, and the impact it will leave on Pakistan’s artistic future. This paper highlights the need to develop interdisciplinary research further on the emerging trends of indigenous futurism in Pakistani literary and artistic productions.