- Venue
- Fringe Arts Bath Venues
- Starts
- Friday, May 27, 2016
- Ends
- Sunday, June 12, 2016
- Address
- http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/
- Location
- South West England
- Organiser
- Fringe Arts Bath
Fringe Arts Bath Presents utopia:dystopia
utopia:dystopia is a series of exhibitions and events inspired by the 500th anniversary of the publication of Utopia, Thomas More’s reflections on the concept of an ideal society.
The title is a pun, based on the contradictory ideas of the Greek words for good-place and no-place. Yet the desire for Utopia, as an expression of the best of what humans can achieve, has never really disappeared. Nor has the idea of its opposite, Dystopia, Greek for bad-place. These words and ideas often seeming inseparable from each other.
utopia:dystopia explores what these twin concepts might mean today, through exhibits, performance and discussion. More than a hundred visual and performance artists and other creative contributors make this a rich encounter with a subject that never really leaves us alone.
EXHIBITIONS
utopia:dystopia in the world
Saturday 28th May – Sunday 12th June
Walcot Chapel
Free admission
At Walcot Chapel the idea is floating in the air that there is currently a shared utopian project underway across a globe – to transform humankind’s troubled relationship with the natural order. Many millions believe that, if this utopian dream is not fully realised, the dystopian consequences will be unprecedented in human history.
Among the visually impressive and thought-provoking works on display in the chapel is the celebrated Swiss artist, Ester Vonplon’s, requiem to dying glaciers. The Italian duo Fonte Poe make serious play with the sounds of cicadas and the Manchester performance artist, Ruby Tingle, does the same with the movements of birds. Sophie Erin Cooper and a team of volunteers float a flower meadow above the visitors’ heads and Doug Clark blocks their way with a waterfall.
utopia:dystopia in the mind
Saturday 28th May – Sunday 12th June
FaB Venue 2
Free Admission
In a subterranean setting at FaB 2, 94 Walcot Street, just five minutes walk from the chapel, the mood is much darker, both literally and metaphorically. The recently departed writer, J.G.Ballard, once said that the true dystopia in the dystopia of the mind. This exhibition explores the unquiet mind, inviting visitors to face the dystopias we carry within us.
Lizz Brady and Lizzie Dunn create a dystopian environment that evokes the tangled world of discarded technology and alienating thoughts that few of us can escape from. Konstantinos Grigoriadis confronts us with the kind of phobias most of us have buried just below the surface. But even in this dark space all is not lost. Our qualities of kindness, intellect, passion and creativity -and, above all, collaboration- are celebrated in these exhibitions and events, just as they were in Thomas More’s original slim volume.
EVENTS
Walk ONE: Open the conversation, stretch minds and legs
Saturday 28th May, 11pm – 1pm
Meet at reception, Bath School of Art and Design
Out of the enchanted city, over the fields, up the hill and back again down the road.
Approx 3 mile walk. Return approx 1pm
the celebrated walker artist, Richard White conducts tours through Bath, uncovering hidden dystopias in this most utopian of cities. Walkers are invited to consider, share thoughts and generate resonances on some of the dystopian aspects of Bath and the people who made it – not least its ambivalent relationship with slavery.
utopia:dystopia in conversation
Saturday 28th May, 2pm – 5pm
Bath School of Art and Design Lecture Theatre
Free admission
A free and open conversation where artists, writers, thinkers and anyone else who wants to join in can engage with themes that correspond with the best of our aspirations and the worst of our nightmares.
Speakers include writer and critic Rachel Withers exploring how utopia and its opposite have manifested themselves in history and culture since the time of Thomas More. Joined by Kate Rigby, author of Changing the Cilmate: Utopia, Dystopia and Catastrophe and newly appointed Professor of Environmental Humanities at Bath Spa University, shows just how relevant the concepts are to the crises we face in modern times.
Walk TWO: Wayfaring in the Enchanted City
Saturday 28th May, 5pm – 7pm
Following on from Bath School of Art and Design Lecture Theatre
The conversation continues with Richard Wright in the café, online and on foot walking through the heart of utopian Bath, approx 7pm arrival at “Bath;s Artisan Quarter” to visit the exhibitions, commencing at The Bell, in Walcot Street.
Liberated Words presents Poetry Films along the themes of Utopia/Dystopia
Thursday 2nd June, 7.30pm
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution
Tickets: £5/£3 Concs
Commemorating the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s Utopia and as part of our Poetry Film + special events Liberated Words is proud to present an international selection of films from top international poetry filmmakers.
Moving Picture Presentation
Friday 3rd June, 6pm – 8pm
Walcot Chapel
utopia:dystopia in performance
Saturday 4th June, 12pm – 5pm
Walcot Chapel
Free admission
Presentations throughout the day featuring:
Fowl by Ruby Tingle
Addiction by Duncan Shaw, Marie Lister and Alexandra Fraser
utopia:dystopia artists and public discussion
Sunday 5th June, 3pm
Walcot Chapel
Free admission
A free-ranging discussion involving artists and visitors with poetic interventions by Helen Moore.
Find out more:
http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/utopiadystopia/
