Utopia * Art * Politics sessions
3rd -5th July 2024
Thrilled to be invited to take part in the Utopia * Art * Politics sessions which will take place at BAK basis voor actuele kunst in July 2024.
How might artistic practices enable radical imagination and alternative politics?
From 3–5 July, the Urban Futures Studio and Community Portal at BAK convene 30 artist-researcher-practitioners to explore this question. Three moments of the event are open to the public and free for registration below.
VISITING INFO
Keynote: Lola Olufemi, Author of Experiments in Imagining Otherwise
How can artistic practices foster radical imagination, and for what purpose? - Thursday 4 July 2024 — 9:30–11 hrs
Performance event: Dreaming in the Dark
What radical potential lies at the heart of utopia, art, and politics?
Thursday 4 July 2024 — 19–22 hrs, including drinks
Keynote: Stephen Duncombe, Co-Founder of The Center for Artistic Activism. How can radical imagination enable alternative politics, and for what change?
Friday 5 July 2024 — 9.30–11 hrs
Location: BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
Entrance fee: Free entrance, registration required
Contact: j.m.chambers@uu.nl
Utopia * Art * Politics Sessions brings together a diverse group of artist-researcher-practitioners (mostly) based in Europe who are actively experimenting with the role of creative and artistic practices in cultivating radical collective imagination and alternative forms of politics—be they disruptive, emancipatory, agonistic, speculative, or prefigurative.
The sessions are co-hosted by BAK Basis voor Actuele Kunst and the Urban Futures Studio and funded by Copernicus Institute, University of Utrecht. The aim of the sessions is to explore the role of artistic practice in reclaiming the power of utopia as a creative method for justice, building on Ruth Levitas’ framing of Utopia as Method and diverse critical, radical, feminist and decolonial utopian scholarship and experimentation.
July 4— How can artistic practices foster radical imagination, and for what purpose? Opened by Lola Olufemi, Black feminist writer, organiser and CREAM/Stuart Hall Foundation researcher in London, and author of Experiments in Imagining Otherwise & Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power;
July 5—How can radical imagination enable alternative politics, and for what change? Opened by Stephen Duncombe, Professor of Media and Culture at NYU, life-long political activist, and Co-Founder of The Center for Artistic Activism in New York, and author of Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy & The Art of Activism: Your All Purpose Guide to Making the Impossible Possible.
