Mae Utopias Bach yn / are:
arbrawf sy’n archwilio
/experiments that exploresyniadau i’r dyfodol
/ideas for the future (that may already be present)wedi’u creu/meddwl/cyflwyno/fframio ar raddfa fach (yn llythrennol, neu fel microcosm)
/constructed/presented/framed in a small scale (physically, or as a microcosm)gall, mewn ffordd, ein helpu i ddychmygu'r byd fel lle gwell i bobol a mwy-na-phobol o bob math, yn arbennig y rhai sydd wedi’u heffeithio’n ddrwg gan stad bresennol y byd
/ that in some way might help us imagine the world a better place for humans and more-than-humans of all kinds, especially those who are most badly affected by the current state of the world.
newyddion - news!!*****
We have three opportunities to make Utopias Bach coming up in June 2021. It seems a bit surreal, imagining that we might be able to gather at some point in the next few months. And if we can (an possibly even if we can’t), we have an opportunity to take part in the Metamorffosis Festival, in Bangor/Porthaethwy 21-27 June.This festival will follow on from the Surrealist Saffaru we put on last year, successfully hosted within COVID-19 regulations.
There are three things we are inviting you (and all interested, of all ages!) to create with us (as well as coming to the event itself of course): Please get in touch if you’d like to take part
1. Utopias Bach - Byd Mawr: GEOCACHE BACH@ TOGYG, Bangor 21 - 27 June 2021
"Future seekers! Orienteer a world of tiny possibilities and imaginings in dystopian cracks and corners in and around TOGYG: discover messages from the future and rethink your relations while navigating your way through unhinged polarities, scales and beings: not to conquer the world but open the metamorffic possibilities of others."
We want to install lots of little creations, as well as little installations or ‘points of noticing’ inside and outside the TOGYG studios, to create an experience for visitors to orienteer around. If you are interested in creating Utopias Bach, or perhaps you’ve already made one, this might be a nice opportunity to install one or more works. It would be a co-curated event, we would (depending on distancing rules etc) gather together or sequentially to install e.g. on Saturday/Sunday 19/20 June, or add them during the week. You are also welcome to post your works to us, and we’ll install for you.
Let me know if you might be interested!
2. Utopias Bach - Trawsffurfiad: A little more-than-human entanglement@ TOGYG, Bangor, date TBC, sometime between 21-27 June 2021
"Shake off your human limitations by travelling into a parallel world, shapeshifting into a more-than-human being on the way (animal, vegetable or mineral or hybrids thereof) to seek prescient insights and advice for our human selves. We will return with gifts to create tiny glimpses – Utopias Bach - that will bring another world just that little bit closer."
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing” - Arundhati Roy
This will be a 'guided visualisation’ workshop, combined with other activities (including some kind of ‘making’ after the guided visualisation, adding creations to the GEOCACHE BACH). If you are interested in helping with this, plz let me know!
3. Oriel ‘Metamorffosis’ Gallery
During the week, there is the opportunity to exhibit artwork in any medium using - or presenting- metamorffosis. If you have something you’d like to exhibit, please let Anna Powell know: withoutorgans@googlemail.com
The Utopian Alphabet
did you know?
The term “Utopia” refers to an ideal place or state, or a visionary system of political or social perfection. Utopia was first used by Thomas More's (1516) - to describe (what was to him) a perfect Island, perfection in politics, law, equality, food, environment etc. Utopia literally means “No Place” … read more about Utopia (dystopia, sitopia, heterotopia) here
why utopias bach?
The world is in need of creative ideas, little experiments that might help us find new ways of living and being, coming from as many different people as possible. This is a chance to playfully try out some ideas, to create a miniature revolution - you never know what it might lead to… or who maybe listening.
You may have ideas about what you might like in the future already. Or you maybe feeling hopeless, or experiencing extreme hardship, and it’s hard to imagine things changing or that the future holds. Either way, we hope that starting to make something - on a little scale - might help create ideas for the future that you’d like to be part of. While you are working on it, playing with different ways of making it, your idea will grow. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, it doesn’t have to be everything. It just has to inspire you.
We will be creating little exhibitions of Utopias Bach - online and perhaps in the real world too. So please do send in any examples of what you have made.
This page sets out some suggestions for how you might try going about it…
TYPES of utopia bach
Your Utopia Bach will be at a small scale, and could take the form of pretty much anything you like: You could sew it, glue it, grow it, build it, write it, draw it, photograph it, film it, paint it, print it, grow it… You could use natural objects, or things you’ve found, or re-use something. It could be lasting or fleeting. It could be a model, a landscape on a plate, a little book, a portrait, a poem, a calendar, a conversation, a picture, a building, a map, a minecraft construction, a set of instructions, a sampler.
Or perhaps your Utopia Bach might be an event or a process that in itself explores/models a Utopia of connection and ways of being - a network, a multi-cultural dinner, a conversation, a procession, an action….
Read more about miniatures here
what might they be about?
You can focus on anything you want to! It could be about food in the future, about how communities work, about connections and relationships, about our relationship with animals and plants, how politics works, economy, rituals and ceremonies, how decisions are made, land use and ownership, how towns and cities work, reimaginging the buildings we live in, about equality and justice, health, social care, information, technology, waste, water, rethinking work, time, learning, travel, tourism… Basically everything needs a re-think!
And you are welcome to write (or record a video or a voice message) about what you’ve made too, if you’d like to explain more about it.
Did you know
The definition of a revolution is:
an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.
a sudden, complete or marked change in something eg society, culture, philosophy, and technology
a turning round or rotating, as on an axis
a single turn of this kind. Read more about revolution here
How to get started?
You could start with…
an idea - perhaps you have an idea about something you’d like to see happen in the future?
an object - perhaps you have a little object or a particular material, or decide to make a mini-placard or scene of placards, or a mini-monument celebrating a change you’d like to see
a place - is there somewhere you care for and/or worry about?
a person or community (human or non-human) - what might make life better for them?
an issue or activity - is there something that needs to change? how could you envisage it in the future?
an event - could you somehow include the idea of focusing on utopias bach
a group - if you are part of a sewing group or community group perhaps the group could work on some utopias bach?
See here for examples of Utopias Bach, made by the Penrhyndeudraeth a’r Cylch Utopias Bach group
Or try one of our resources below - including a guided visualisation that will take you to your Utopia Bach in 2050, as a human or a more-than-human!
Zoë Skoulding’s Revolutionary Calendar. “Ar ôl Chwyldro Ffranc 1789, cyflwynwyd calendr newydd o wythnosau deg diwrnod. Ailenwyd fisoedd ar ôl tymhorau a disodli dyddiau seintiau gydag enwau planhigion, anifeiliaid ac offer amaethyddol”
Mini-monument to ‘secret whistleblowers everywhere’ by Wanda Zyborska
MORE RESOUCES
Please click on the links!
Practical how to guides
Make a miniature book or manifesto - what would you describe, suggest, illustrate?
Make a garden on a plate - who/what would your garden (or park or other green space) be for? where would it be? how would it connect to others? what is revolutionary about it? “The power of solidarity with the plants
is that with a bit of soil and one seed
we can begin the work of transformation
– we can activate processes to heal the planet” Dr Natasha Myers
Make a diorama (a little scene in a box) - what scene from the future might you want to make? where would it be? who would be in it? what might they be doing? how is it different to now?
Ena 欣昕 Straw (age 5), A House for Spiders (and their humans), 2021
The Craftivist Collective - how would you make something crafty to spark a tiny change in something? what new way of thinking or being might it prompt? how can sewing be radical?
Make a mini-monument - how would you like monuments to be different? who/what would monuments be to? how would they help create and celebrate a diverse and equal society?
Make a mini-placard - how would you describe what you’d like in your Utopia bach? how would you like to be/what would you be doing/experiencing?
Hold a micro-conversation - who would you like to have a conversation with? what might you explore together? how might it change relationships or overcome mis understandings, political or cultural differences?
Prompts for thinking/ideas
Mini placard for Utopias Bach Penrhyndeudraeth a’r Cylch, Lindsey Colbourne 2020
Utopias Bach guided visualisation - try one of these recordings to help get ideas going!
Using 2020 as a chance to reimagine the world
Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish, What is the radical imagination? - quite an academic paper but brilliant in its scope and introduces ideas and examples you might find inspirational
Space for Creative Thinking - 29 prompts for curious minds by ClimateCultures
About Utopias, Dystopias and Heterotopias
About ‘bach’ and the Terrestrial
GRRRLS in the Garej and the mini-monument lab
Secret artists creating miniature buildings for street mice - a great example of a miniature with a serious message
Examples of Utopias BAch
Gruff Ellis Jolley Floating Farm for the Future:
“With the sea levels rising and consumption for farm land leading to deforestation and habitat loss it may come to a point were farming on sea may become a legitimate option. I imagine these floating bio-domes to each have different climates to grow a verity of veg and fruit capable of supporting a variety of annimals within them, all connected together by a series of bridges.these large floating structures could also suport habitats for small creatures to latch onto. With new farming space we would no longer have to expand into annimals habitats and we would have a sufficient food source with many more jobs available to accompany it.”
Wanda Zyborska
“Two cherished mini ideas were first to come to the surface; one was to make mini-(no)places to go under the domes I have been collecting over the years. The other was a mini-(utopian)-landscape, peopled by mini-people, this should manifest within a bigger landscape. This idea is one of my oldest, arising from childhood imaginings in the vast spaces of Australia, where I devised tiny peopled landscapes within landscapes projected imaginatively on the landscape around me in chosen places, like the gullies alongside the road, as a coping mechanism to avoid being overwhelmed by the enormous scale of that country. I know from experience the pleasurable escapist benefits of this kind of mini-utopic imaginings, manifest in dolls houses and miniature towns and villages. They can be nostalgic and sad, as in The Bottle city of Kandor in Superman, miniaturised and saved when the planet Krypton was destroyed by the supervillain Brainiac. An example of the dark side of miniaturising utopias. I must keep something of the dystopian in my mini-utopias, they must never reach the horror of the realised utopia, utopia must be something strived for but not quite arrived at or fixed, if it wants to avoid the dangers spelled out in literature and fact in utopian exploits of the past. I want to keep the striving for utopia in process, on a moving polarity of deterritorialisation.”
Wanda Zyborska (2008) Wanda and Trish go South: An Australian Utopia Bach
Samina Ali’s Utopias Bach
What future for the quarries? Samina Ali, 2020
“Miniature utopian worlds created in nature, based on specific themes and inspired by the locality I live in – which keeps changing as I gypsy around in my caravan, living simply with the earth and discovering new natural beauty around North Wales. Ones I have created to date….
Inspiring spiritual connection to nature connections with love… A stone circle with a magical elemental component to create a sense of wonder…using Pentir mossy rock, more local moss, slate from nearby, Citrine gemstones discovered on the ground at a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka, naked figure as a faery elemental with wings from a very small bird found on the ground nearby my caravan in Pentir
What is our version of ceremony in these times (Winter of 2020)? A stone circle clearing with people doing ceremony around a fire with elemental representations as naked figures. Made with wood, nearby moss, nearby slate, ash made from burning local wood near dwelling in Pentir. Plastic miniature models/men/faeries. Also made with 2 children’s impromptu involvement and inspirations!
My first miniature as me, Samina Ali 2021
The evolution of mother nature reclaiming slate tips. 2 slate tips reclaimed by nature’s amazing way she brings beauty back to areas desolate or pillaged by human interference. Invoking a mystical element too with the inclusion of a miniature stone circle – something that keeps arising organically in my miniature utopias which hasn’t been planned apart from in the 1st one! Made from local slate in Fron – where I have now moved to! Plants, heather, moss, lichen, and quartz crystal from Mynydd Mawr nearby.
Derelicts – future development and usage for creating basic natural homes, local art /creative studios, communal gathering spaces for meetings, ceremonies etc….work in progress….Derelicts recreated and then using local dumped rubbish and other recyclables – creating innovative and creative ways to honor, celebrate and utilize these spaces. Made using local slate in y Fron, wood, local heather, local crystal quartz, local rubbish, recycling of tins, plastic bottles – all used/bought locally. “
Lisa Hudson
“My personal Utopias bach will be a research project based in my garden. I will be observing Utopian systems that exist in the small space that I also inhabit. I will begin by observing the wild strawberries in the southwestern corner of my garden. I will draw them, photograph them and document their growth. My role will be just that of witness.
My usual approach would be to study them as a model or a metaphor for an inter-human relationship or process, or I would look at them and wonder what I need to learn from them for my personal growth. This as an acquisitional approach that I want to challenge. My observation of the strawberry and research into its properties, histories and symbolism has no goal beyond that of learning about the strawberry plant and observing it as what it is rather than what it is for or what it means to me.”