Carlijn Kingma
ExploreLab
Image: A History of the Utopian Tradition
The Institute of Utopianism
A great man once said: Progress is the realization of Utopia. We have to create Utopia. Because without it we are lost. In ‘The Institute of Utopianism’ we follow the brave protagonist on her journey in search of utopia, through a series of hand drawn architectural constructs. Wandering through history, she learns about the utopian tradition. Dissecting the utopian body, she tries to understand the defining the attributes of Utopia. And finally, she even creates one. But she discovers that all she creates in university, somehow doesn’t change anything. In this moment, the protagonist decides to scrutinize the ivory tower of science, in order to understand how science could enable utopianism. Her journey ends with arriving at the Institute of Utopianism, a metaphorical school in the service of plural utopianism, a critique on the current science paradigm and a proposal for a new, utopian perhaps, school for Utopianism.