Utopia is not an island
20 Nov 2023
With Utopia is not an island, its proposal for The European Pavilion 2024, LABoral Art and Industrial Creation Centre in Gijón aims to mobilise utopian storytelling and art to imagine a better and ecologically viable future.
The proposal revolves around three aspects of what Europe is today: diversity as a constituent characteristic, mobility as a cohesive condition of our society, and climate action and policy as driving forces.
From September 2024 to April 2025, LABoral will devote over 2300m2 to hosting Utopia is not an island in the form of an experimental space, somewhere between an open studio, an agora and an exhibition.
Beforehand, between July and August, a group of artists will embark on a 5-week artistic residency on a train departing from their home town. During their journey, they will develop their contribution to the exhibition in Gijón as well as to a series of podcasts. They will also share their artistic work and process during a series of events organised in collaboration with partner institutions such as Brunnenpassage in Vienna, Transmediale in Berlin, or Makery in Paris.
The public programme of Utopia is not an island will be expanded to different sites of the city of Gijón, including bookshops, cafes and the Gijon International Film Festival of independent cinema (FICX).
Utopia is not an island is curated by Amanda Masha Caminals, in collaboration with site curators: Pablo de Soto (LABoral), Elisabeth Bernroitner (Brunnenpassage, Vienna), Zuzanna Ernst (Brunnenpassage, Vienna), Nora O’ Murch (Transmediale, Berlin), Ewen Chardronnet (Makery, Paris) and Alejandro Díaz (FICX, Gijón).
