“Cli­mate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st cen­tu­ry.” (Lancet Cli­mate Change Com­mis­sion 2009) This sci-fi short film takes action and drafts a future well­ness par­adise. Taking the form of a com­mer­cial adver­tise­ment, SPA SYBARITE sheds light on dis­as­ter cap­i­tal­ism, where com­pa­nies use a crisis like cli­mate change as an oppor­tu­ni­ty for profit.  

Joshua Ashish Dawson is an Indian-born, archi­tect-trained World builder, Nar­ra­tive design­er, and award-win­ning film­mak­er based in Los Ange­les. He received a Master’s in Advanced Archi­tec­tur­al Stud­ies from the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. His Mas­ter’s thesis was advised by the BAFTA-nom­i­nat­ed direc­tor Shekhar Kapur. He has trained under Pritzk­er Prize-win­ning archi­tect Balkr­ish­na Doshi as well as Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tion design­er Alex McDow­ell. This com­bi­na­tion has led him to explore the craft­ing of alter­na­tive future worlds as an alle­gor­i­cal device to cri­tique and study the present-day con­di­tions of the built envi­ron­ment through cin­e­mat­ic visu­al­iza­tion.