LONDON.- Celebrating the 500th anniversary of Thomas Mores inspirational book Utopia, Paths to Utopia is a collection of new art works resulting from collaborations between artists, performers, architects, technologists and
Kings College London academics. In this unique cultural hub, audiences have the chance to encounter whales, ascend to a community on the clouds and witness the ubiquitous, transcendental pursuit of creativity.
This wide-ranging exhibition features new works from Le Gun Collective, author Philip Hoare and artist Caitlin Shepherd amongst others. On show are films, immersive installations, durational performance, a national scratch choir and loans from The Courtauld Gallery, that allow audiences to create a figurative map of what Utopia means in todays society. Paths to Utopia seeks to question what Utopia is and to examine Thomas Mores vision.
With artist academic collaborations that bring together health, education and creativity, this truly unique exhibition bridges art forms.
Running for three months across Kings College Londons Strand Campus and Somerset House, the work in this exhibition ranges from the ephemeral to the permanent. The exhibition is free to attend, but a number of the pieces need to be pre-booked. Throughout the summer, there will also be a series of talks related to the projects in Paths to Utopia.
Paths to Utopia is part of Utopia 2016: A year of imagination and possibility, a collaboration between three neighbours: Somerset House, Kings College London and the Courtauld Institute.
Deborah Bull, Assistant Principal, Kings College London said The imaginative range of works within Paths to Utopia each result from a bold new collaboration between a Kings academic and artists, performers, architects and technologists. The programme aims to guide audiences as they map their own journey towards a better, brighter future, exploring as they go the new and intriguing spaces where academic thinking, artistic practice and Mores enduring text converge.
Andy Franzkowiak, Creative Producer Paths to Utopia, at Kings College London comments, Utopia is a vast landscape to cover. It has been attempted thousands of times via fact and fiction and, though coined by Thomas More 500 years ago, cultures have been fascinated by the idea for millennia. We hope that visitors will add their own ideas, discover their own paths and find moments of Utopia in their own eventful journey. Our particular journey is laid out by artists, academics, architects, technologists, nurses, neuroscientists, Navajo, singers, linguists, mathematicians, and many more. We also really hope people will want to come back time and time again to this cultural hub to reveal new parts of their personal and unique Utopian map. One thing is for sure, no two paths are the same.