ZONE D’UTOPIE TEMPORAIRE (Z.U.T.) RESIDENCY – PART II

Curators

Alice Bonnot

Artists

Hannah Corrie

Julia Dreiski

Lowri Evans

Fleuryfontaine

Maxence Hamard

Thomas Langley

Faustine Levin

Orly Orbach

Kurst Krapperz

Rafal Zajko

For three weeks, 1 – 20 August 2016, The Koppel Project Hive hosted the second edition of the Zone d’Utopie Temporaire (Z.U.T.) summer residency program. The residency stands as an ongoing social and creative experiment whereby a group of selected artists accept the challenge of working together during three weeks to create a Temporary Utopian Zone.

Collectively, this residency examined the way in which we transform our surroundings to reflect the displacement of our dreams. Through the artwork produced by nine international and multidisciplinary artists, ‘utopia’ provokes the social imagination by resonating with the themes of hope and desire. Whilst many works were created in the given time period, each addresses utopia different- ly, and all are constituted through social engagement.

Accompanying the artists, theorists Lowri Evans and Hannah Corrie, facilitated discussions and debates to feed the artists’ creative process. The group also worked with art historian and critic Julia Ramirez Blanco who presented her research on ‘The Utopian Turn: the relationship between contemporary art and utopia’.

Arguably, the core format of the Z.U.T. residency programme is itself Utopian. Following the con- tinuing success of those first two editions, who knows, perhaps Temporary Utopian Zones can take shape anywhere?

Gallery