Call for fellowships »Under Utopia«

CONTEXT

States of crisis are the signature of our times – expanding fatigue and exhaustion symptomatic conditions of our societies. Solutions only appear viable when they happen to be in line with paradigms of perpetuation of wealth and economic growth.
How do we escape the misery of a present that redundantly poses the same questions, that dictates the same ideas and solutions over and over again? Utopias, and this connects them with the arts, offer a much-needed corrective to the present, building new grounds to renegotiate what new social and democratic structures could look like.
As a form of indicator, they expose how individual and collective expectations are constituted regarding ideas around what a successful life on earth means to us. They comprehend our common world as »under construction« – an open and extended space of possibilities, where new realities can be imagined.

»Under Utopia« sees itself as a plea for collective take-off and worldings. A path towards the uncertain, outside the realms of prognosis and predictability. A process, not only creating new imaginaries but fueling our desire to critically inquire our surroundings, searching for meaningful ways to contribute to a better future. Not under exclusion of the public but on a democratic basis, together with any social agent who is affected by the future and has therefore a right to participate in shaping it. Opening up a space to express our wishes, hopes and desires, fundamentally question our modes of existence but also mirror back to us responsibilities we implicitly carry for our shared environment. As a way to connect in unusual ways, cooperatively recalibrating visions and ideas for peaceful coexistence in the here and now. How can we start to walk this journey into the unknown together?