Update: Becky’s video “Utopia is …” has been uploaded to the Vox Pops page.
“What does Utopia mean to me?” was the initial question. Surprisingly enough, given the centuries of searching for an idealised community or society, popping the question into Google returns just 2 results, from the University of Denver and the De La Warr Pavilion sites. From Plato’s “Republic” and Al Farabi’s “Al-Madina al-Fadila” through (Sir/St) Thomas More’s work in which he coined this good or no-place, the Renaissance and Enlightenment to Bucky Fuller, futurism and beyond, nearly two and a half thousand years of human endeavour has resulted in almost nobody asking “What does Utopia mean to me?” At least not online.
Even searching “What does Utopia mean?” only gives a few thousand results; “What is Utopia?” over 130,000 – perhaps therein lies the rub: perhaps the difficulty lies in deciding what Utopia actually is: until that is settled upon, what hope have we of applying such notions to our dystopian lives?
Given the nature of Utopia, perhaps a more objective rather than subjective answer is required; are we aiming to return to a blissful mythic Golden Age , build a new Jerusalem, found an Anarcho-Syndicalist workers’ paradise, or even just to live without fear?
We would be fascinated by your answers, so please leave a comment below. Some of our intrepid curators will be traipsing the streets of London over the next couple of weeks to capture and immortalise these views on film … so watch out!
Hélène Rallo - 77