Utopia*Art*Politics Sessions
Exploring the potential of utopia as a creative & plural method for justice
How might artistic practices enable radical imagination and politics? From July 3 – 5, the Urban Futures Studio and Community Portal @ BAK—basis voor actuele kunst are convening 30 artist-researcher-practitioners to explore this question. Three moments of the event are open to the public. Join us and register for free via the link below.
It feels harder than ever to imagine a future that is both collectively desirable and achievable. Mainstream politics have often deepened this crisis of imagination, by furthering marginalisation, polarisation, and apathy. Now trapped between a populist pull towards imagined ‘utopian’ pasts and a technocratic push towards imagined ‘utopian’ futures, the time is ripe to revitalise our utopian imagination and politics.
The Utopia*Art*Politics Sessions explore the potential of utopia as a creative and plural method for justice. Artistic practices — storytelling, visioning, theatre, music and more — play a powerful role in activating our imagination of possible futures and reinterpretation of past and present moments. Such practices can make visible what has been silenced, disrupt our ‘common sense’, traverse conflicting imaginaries, offer glimpses of a world otherwise, and compel people towards action. This event brings together 30 artist-researcher-practitioners actively experimenting with how artistic practices can help reimagine and remake our world.
Dialogue sessions will occur in a closed space with invited guests. However, three parts of the event — keynotes by Lola Olufemi and Stephen Duncombe, and a performance evening — are open for public registration. An output will be released following the event to share generated insights.
4 July — Keynote by Lola Olufemi, Author of Experiments in Imagining Otherwise
How can artistic practices foster radical imagination, and for what purpose?
This keynote, styled in fragments, explores the relationship between creative practices of refusal and the imagination. It uses archival material related to radical social movements as a starting point for examining the productive tensions between ‘art’ and ‘politics,’ as well as their fundamental interrelation. It explores the interests of the artist-worker and their duty to respond to the current political conjuncture.
| Time | 9:30 - 11:00 |
| Location | BAK—basis voor actuele kunst (Pauwstraat 13A, 3512 TG Utrecht) |
| Entrance fee | Free entrance, registration required |
About Lola Olufemi
Lola Olufemi is a black feminist writer and researcher from London. She is co-author of 'A FLY Girl's Guide to University' (Verve Poetry Press, 2019), author of 'Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power' (Pluto Press, 2020) and 'Experiments in Imagining Otherwise' (Hajar Press, 2021). She is a member of 'bare minimum', an interdisciplinary anti-work arts collective and the recipient of the 2020 Techne AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership between The Stuart Hall Foundation, CREAM and Westminster School of Arts. Her work focuses on the uses of the imagination in revolutionary cultural production; its relationship to futurity, political demands and 'imaginative-revolutionary potential'. Her short story, "Red", was shortlisted for the 2020 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. She tweets at @lolaolufemi_ and is represented by Emma Paterson at Aitken Alexander Associates. Alongside writing, she facilitates reading groups and workshops, occasionally curates and is volunteer co-ordinator at the Feminist Library.
4 July — Performance 'Dreaming in the Dark'
What radical potential lies at the heart of utopia, art and politics?
Join us to imagine radically just futures amidst our troublesome times. Dreaming in the Dark weaves together a mosaic of performative provocations from the 15+ artist-researcher-practitioners attending the full Utopia * Art * Politics Sessions. Through live performances involving striking visuals, stories, music, and more, we will provoke new ideas around the questions: How can we imagine more radically together? What is the role of art in fostering collective imagination? And how can such imaginative acts enable transformative politics? In essence, what radical potential lies at the heart of utopia, art and politics? Rather than stay asleep amongst utopian ruins from the past, this event provokes us to dream radically otherwise, in ways that attend to colonial legacies and systemic injustices.
| Time | 19:00 - 22:00 (including drinks) |
| Location | BAK—basis voor actuele kunst (Pauwstraat 13A, 3512 TG Utrecht) |
| Entrance fee | Free entrance, registration required |
5 July — Keynote by Stephen Duncombe, co-founder of The Center for Artistic Activism
How can radical imagination enable alternative politics, and for what change?
Utopia translates to No-Place: a land that can not be found, a world that remains elusive; in the words of Leon Trotsky: a “fire of the imagination.” But what might be the lasting effect of the affect of radical imagination? Drawing on his lengthy experience studying and staging utopian experiments, Stephen Duncombe will explore the different ways that Utopia might lead Some-Place, whether as prefiguration of world to become; a training ground for alternative ways of thinking, feeling and doing in the here and now; a performative platform to experiment with possibilities, or a concrete pathway to institutional change.
| Time | 9:30 - 11:00 |
| Location | BAK—basis voor actuele kunst (Pauwstraat 13A, 3512 TG Utrecht) |
| Entrance fee | Free entrance, registration required |
About Stephen Duncombe
Stephen Duncombe is a Professor of Media and Culture at New York University and the author and editor of nine books and numerous articles on the intersection of culture and politics. He is also the creator of TheOpenUtopia.org, an open-access, open-source, web-based edition of Thomas More’s Utopia. A lifelong political activist, Duncombe co-founded a community-based group in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which won an award for “Creative Activism” from the Abbie Hoffman Foundation, and worked as an organiser for the NYC chapter of the international direct action group Reclaim the Streets. He is currently co-founder and research director of the Center for Artistic Activism, a research and training institute that helps activists create more like artists and strategise more like activists.
About the organisers
Josie Chambers, Assistant Professor, Urban Futures Studio
Alejandro Navarete Cortés, Communities & Praxis Coordinator, BAK—basis voor actuele kunst
This event is supported by the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University.
- Start date and time
- -
- End date and time
- -
- Location
- BAK—basis voor actuele kunst (Pauwstraat 13A, 3512 TG Utrecht)
- Entrance fee
- Free entrance, registration required
- Registration
Go to this Sign up Form