Dominik Tomaszczuk "Pre mortem"

projects

Water levels and temperatures are rising in seas and oceans around the world. These are dramatic and, unfortunately, already observable effects of global warming.

Showcasing the graduates of the Sputnik Photos Mentoring Programme 2023/2024. More photos will be on display at the exhibition

in Warsaw, starting 26 April, 2025.

The world of science has no doubts – the catastrophe has already begun, and if the direction in which humanity is heading does not change, it will become even more severe. The extent of the catastrophe will be so large that it is even difficult to imagine.

However, let's try…

Imagine that we are in the future, let's say 70-80 years from now. Let’s look around and describe what we see. Maybe these are the coastlines of the countries we live in but receded inland. Or perhaps ‘just’ the collapse of the tourism and fishing industry caused by the boiling seas? Let's try to understand the potential consequences – social and economic – of such changes.

And now imagine that from this very point in the future, we move in time again, returning to where we are today and observing the subsequent stages of the catastrophe all along the way. We take a closer look at its components, investigate the causes, and search for the overlooked (or rather ignored) signs that led to the tragedy. We look for connections between phenomena and try to find an answer to the question: was it possible to avoid this failure?

What we have just done is a practical application of an exercise, well-known in the worlds of business and technology and called pre mortem – a risk mapping technique. Pre mortem is based on a kind of fortune-telling, business shamanism. Performing a series of ceremonies with the use of relevant artifacts enables having a peek into the future and predict both phenomena and events that may occur, resulting in the failure of a particular project.

The purpose of the pre mortem is not to make sure that the project will turn out successful because nothing and no one can guarantee it. It is to define and understand the dangers and minimize the risk of failure.