Ben Okri and Jason Silva are redefining art and innovation at the UNFINISHED Festival

The UNFINISHED Festival in Romania brings together innovators and visionaries from various fields, providing a unique space for reflection, socializing, and collaboration. Among the renowned participants of this year’s edition are Ben Okri, a novelist and poet who won the prestigious Booker Prize, and Jason Silva, an author, vlogger, director, and Emmy-nominated TV personality. In an interview, the two discuss essential themes such as artistic freedom, the future of humanity, and the role of art in an increasingly digitalized world.

Discover how literature, imagination, and interdisciplinarity can shape not only art but also our collective future. The UNFINISHED Festival, as a catalyst for these transformations, inspires innovative collaborations and new perspectives on contemporary challenges.

UNFINISHED Festival will take place from September 27 to 29 in Bucharest, at 46 Dionisie Lupu Street, in the House of Ideas, along with its garden and the heritage greenhouse. The only way to attend is by submitting an application at apply.unfinished.ro, with the deadline being September 25, at 11:59 PM.

Sir Ben Okri is one of the most celebrated contemporary writers, known for his distinctive style that blends reflections on social and political realities with remarkably deep prose. Among his many achievements are the publication of the novels The Famished Road, for which he won the Booker Prize, and Astonishing the Gods, selected by the BBC as one of the „100 Novels That Shaped Our World”. Referring to the UNFINISHED Festival, the artist emphasizes that magic is born when creative people collaborate for a common purpose and destination.

„The Famished Road” is a globally appreciated work for its depth and complexity. What inspired you to create this story, and what other important themes can we find in your works?

Ben Okri: Hard to talk about the inspiration for such a book. I wanted to tell a new story, to re-dream Africa. I realised that implied in the African world view is the possibility of an entirely new fictionality, a new kind of storytelling, a new literature that is different from the linear western model, and yet one that gives all the old pleasures with new angles and possibilities. With this new kind of storytelling I could go beyond death and see life in a new way.

What do you believe is the overall impact of your works on younger generations of artists and readers, particularly in light of contemporary challenges?

Ben Okri: Truth. Imagination. Love. Justice. To tell the truth, to see it, is very hard. Style, upbringing, class, even religion get in the way. But to try and get to how things are, to dare to dream a better way, to stand vulnerable before the world while still being strong, to tell the truth as you see it in the clearest way without bullshit is hard. But it’s what we need. We need dreamers and artistic truth-tellers.

What themes and works – your own works – have you chosen to present at the Unfinished festival and how do they influence the perception of contemporary art and society?

Ben Okri: Freedom and soul fire, solidarity and dream. The highest praxis is not the act of a day or a year. It is the act that changes things for the better for years and years to come. So we have to listen to our times and we have to create a new art to forge a new future. We need silence and we need to mobilise and we need to see where we want to take society. It should be towards more freedom and more courage. We need to awaken the soul fire of the citizen.

In the context of the themes explored at the festival, how do you see the role of literature and art in shaping the future?

Ben Okri: Literature’s greatest power is to re-dream, to show people that nothing is fixed, that the past does not need to be the future, that the future is ours to dream and shape. It is the gift of active imagination, without which political action can be dogmatic and narrow. Literature can liberate us from the prison of reality as it has been shaped for us by the power structures. It points the way to the freedom to remake our world from our best dreams. This freedom is what they con us into thinking that we don’t have. But this freedom is a powerful force that we have to use carefully.

In a festival that brings together artists, thinkers, and innovators from various fields, how do you think these meetings can be used to generate new perspectives and collaborations?

Ben Okri: Bring people together, treat them with respect, and ask them to unleash the gift that’s within them. Magic happens when creative people work together for a meaningful goal and destination.

The Unfinished festival is known for creating a space for reflection and idea exchange. What do you hope to take away from this experience?

Ben Okri: I will come to share and listen. Sometimes being there is enough. Dwelling in the force field of new possibilities. This is what I love.

How do you see the future of literature and art in an increasingly digitalized world?

Ben Okri: Artists have to transcend the machine. Writer’s need to go deeper than before. We ought to be wilder, truer to our deepest impulses, and our art has to be stranger in its unexpected beauty. The one thing AI can’t do is truth. It can imitate, combine, reproduce and clone. But it cannot reach for the truth. For truth is beyond style and technique. It comes from a soul that feels the awesome paradox of the world and responds with an unprecedented howl or song.

What motivated you to choose the train as your means of transportation to Romania instead of a faster journey by plane?

Ben Okri: The faster is slower, and the slower truer. All arrival is not just of the body. Sometimes we arrive before we arrive. I love trains. I have cut down flying partly for environmental reasons. But the train is for me the truly philosophical and spiritual way to experience the reality beneath the reality.

„I spoke at the festival a few years ago and absolutely loved it”

Jason Silva, a visionary in technology, philosophy, and consciousness, is known for his unique ability to blend these fields to create captivating and profound experiences. Through his viral video series „Shots of Awe”, Jason Silva challenges us to question human nature, the future of artificial intelligence, and the complexity of the universe. He spoke about the importance of the UNFINISHED Festival for the development of humanity, noting that these interdisciplinary discussions enrich the discourse and plant seeds for new ideas.

How do you manage to combine science, philosophy, and technology in the content you produce? What is the creative process you follow when you want to convey abstract concepts about time, space, and consciousness?  

Jason Silva: I am very much a generalist, someone interested in many topics, the vast intellectual landscape of humanity! I studied philosophy and film in university and fell in love with digital content! By focusing on short form content, I was able to explore many topics with ease! My creative process harnesses „flow” which is a state of consciousness of intense focus and a capacity for fluid improvisation.  

What techniques do you use to captivate and inspire your audience during your speeches?   

Jason Silva: I have one simple strategy: curiosity and passion. These are the things that drive me. If i am able to capture my genuine curiosity and passion, it will be transmitted to the viewer and the audience.  People respond well to authenticity. 

How do you structure your messages in the „Shots of Awe” series to stimulate the audience’s curiosity?

Jason Silva: People tend to mirror what they see. If I am curious and filled with awe, people will feel that. If I am bored, they will feel that too. My communication style has always been about channeling that awe and inspiration from within. 

Is there a short film or recent project that best reflects your vision of the future? What message did you want to convey through it?

Jason Silva: Definitely!  If you see my YouTube channel, Shots of Awe, there are many videos exploring the future of AI, the future of consciousness, psychedelics and mental health and more!   Here’s a few examples: CYBERDELIC EXPLOSION, THE SULTANS OF FLOW, A MENTAL HEALTH PARADIGM SHIFT

What attracted you to the Unfinished festival in Romania? How do you see the importance of such events?

Jason Silva: I spoke at the festival a few years ago and absolutely loved it! The festival attracted some of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met!  Gathering minds like these and blasting their hearts open is always a wonderful thing. 

How do your ideas about the future align with the themes explored at the Unfinished festival?

Jason Silva: Well, I believe the human project is unfinished… we are still evolving. This aligns with the festival name! Furthermore, this year’s theme of PRAXIS invites artists and designers to think about how their philosophy manifests in the world, taking us beyond ideas and abstraction into action. This is important to me. 

The festival brings together artists, thinkers, and innovators from various fields. How do you think these meetings can be utilized to generate new perspectives and collaboration?

Jason Silva: Having people converge together in this way encourages cross disciplinary discussions that elevate discourse and plant seeds for new ideas, and „once a mind is stretched by a new idea it never returns to its original position!”.

About UNFINISHED

Held under the high patronage of the European Parliament, UNFINISHED is the first multidisciplinary festival in Romania and was created by the Eidos Foundation as an evolving experience. Since 2016, UNFINISHED has hosted over 250 guests, including Pixar co-founder Alvy Ray Smith, artistic director for the men’s line at Louis Vuitton Virgil Abloh, award-winning artist Marina Abramović, digital strategist during the Obama administration, musician Nicolas Jaar, and Esther Perel, the most well-known psychotherapist specializing in couple relationships.

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