'Only one way in and one way out': Staging Utopian Spaces

Abstract: This polyphonic paper draws together methods, content and impressions from a workshop on utopian spatial practice. It provides a critical reflection on the utopian possibilities inherent in small scale performances of spatial re-organization which re-structure existing patterns of behaviour. Over the course of this workshop, held as part of the ‘Utopian Acts’ conference, the mundane space of a university seminar room was briefly transformed. Participants were asked to read extracts from three works of feminist utopian science fiction (sf): Ursula Le Guin’s ‘The Dispossessed’, Marge Piercy’s ‘Woman on the Edge of Time’ and Sally Miller Gearhart’s ‘The Wanderground: Stories of the Hill Women’. They then worked in groups to rearrange the furniture into an echo of the utopian space of the text. By inhabiting these temporary stagings of utopian space the participants disrupted existing patterns of behaviour and opened up a site for alternatives.This process of imaginative construction i

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Studies in Arts and Humanities ; 5 (2019) 1 ; 5-23

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Architektur

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (who): SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
• (when): 2019
• Creator: Butt, Amy

Further information

• DOI: 10.18193/sah.v5i1.155
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2022090115203038996768
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:35 AM CEST