Reading Group #11 | Real Utopias

Join us to discuss arts-based utopian practices and their role in democracy, education and social change. 
 
The session will be facilitated by Dr Malaika Cunningham, a practice-based researcher and artist whose work explores the space between participatory arts, democracy and environmental justice. Together, we will read and discuss selected texts to explore ‘real utopias’ and how they might be enacted in and through art education.
 
Utopias, and their role in democracy and social change, have been a major theme in Cunningham’s work for many years. From 2020 to 2024, she toured the performance installation piece The People’s Palace of Possibility around the UK, and hosted a blog series exploring the idea of ‘real utopias’ on Artsadmin from 2021 to 2023.
 
Cunningham is a Fellow with The Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP) and was recently awarded a Churchill Fellowship to explore arts and ecology in Japan. She is Artistic Director of The Bare Project, a theatre and interactive arts company based in Sheffield with whom she is currently attempting to grow theatre made from living trees. She also has a growing practice in food-based performance. 

• Extracts from Erik Olin Wright, Envisioning Real Utopias, Verso, 2010.
• Ruth Levitas, “Where there is no vision, the people perish: A utopian ethic for a transformed future” in CUSP Essay Series on the Morality of Sustainable Prosperity, No 5. Guildford: Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity, 2017. Available online at: https://cusp.ac.uk/themes/m/m1-5/
• Excerpts from Malaika Cunningham, Collecting Real Utopias, Artsadmin, 2021–2023. Available online at: https://www.artsadmin.co.uk/collecting-real-utopias-introductions/

This reading group will take place on Monday 27 October from 6.30–8pm at our new home in east London. 

Address:  
Freelands Foundation
12 Errol Street (Lamb’s Buildings entrance)
EC1Y 8LX London

Registration: 
The event is free and open to all, but capacity is limited, and places will be allocated on a first come first served basis. If you are interested in participating, please email [email protected] by Monday 20 October and you will receive confirmation of your place.  

The materials will be shared with all those interested in joining the group. Please read the texts in advance of the event. 

Image: Illustration by Hannah Roast.