Prif awgrymiadau a syniadau
ar gyfer gwneud eich Utopias Bach
Top tips and ideas
for making your own Utopias Bach
“If you want to change the future, play with it first”
— Stephanie Olsen
Gan Llinos Griffin, 2020
Be’ ydy Utopias Bach? What are Utopias Bach?
arbrawf sy’n archwilio
/experiments that exploresyniadau i’r dyfodol
/ideas for the future (that may already be present)wedi’u creu/meddwl/cyflwyno/fframio ar raddfa fach (yn llythrennol, neu fel microcosm)
/constructed/presented/framed in a small scale (physically, or as a microcosm)gall, mewn ffordd, ein helpu i ddychmygu'r byd fel lle gwell i bobol a mwy-na-phobol o bob math, yn arbennig y rhai sydd wedi’u heffeithio’n ddrwg gan stad bresennol y byd
/ that in some way might help us imagine the world a better place for humans and more-than-humans of all kinds, especially those who are most badly affected by the current state of the world.
Why do we need them?
The world is in need of creative ideas, little experiments that might help us find new ways of living and being, coming from as many different people as possible. This is a chance to playfully try out some ideas, to create a miniature revolution - you never know what it might lead to… or who maybe listening.
You may have ideas about what you might like in the future already. Or you maybe feeling hopeless, or experiencing extreme hardship, and it’s hard to imagine things changing or that the future holds. Either way, we hope that starting to make something - on a little scale - might help create ideas for the future that you’d like to be part of. While you are working on it, playing with different ways of making it, your idea will grow. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, it doesn’t have to be everything. It just has to inspire you.
This page sets out some suggestions for how you might try going about it.
You may also want to take a look at our Tanio/Sparks page for more ideas, inspirations, examples, or see Geocache Bach our collective installation of Utopias Bach as part of Gwyl Metamorffosis in June 2021.
Or see, and perhaps join in with our Arbrofion - Experiments that are underway.
If you would like to be part of a supportive creative learning community, you are warmly invited to join our Collaboratory which meets both online and in the real world once a month.
A great way to start might be to take a look at the invitations and responses to our Cwrs Utopias Bach course: This will take you through a structured way of experimenting and exploring your ideas:
GRRRLS in the Garej and the mini-monument lab, 2018
"Imagination comes into play in that moment when a new meaning emerges from out of the ruins of the literal interpretation."
Paul Ricouer 1978. 'L'imagination dans le discourse et dans l'action' Lecture
Types of Utopia Bach
Ena 欣昕 Straw (age 5), A House for Spiders (and us), 2021
Your Utopia Bach will be at a small scale, and could take the form of pretty much anything you like: You could sew it, glue it, grow it, build it, write it, draw it, photograph it, film it, paint it, print it, grow it… You could use natural objects, or things you’ve found, or re-use something. It could be lasting or fleeting. It could be a model, a landscape on a plate, a little book, a portrait, a poem, a calendar, a conversation, a picture, a building, a map, a minecraft construction, a set of instructions, a sampler.
Or perhaps your Utopia Bach might be an event or a process that in itself explores/models a Utopia of connection and ways of being - a network, a multi-cultural dinner, a conversation, a procession, an action….
What might they be about?
Seran Arianwen, 2020, Utopias Bach Penrhyndeudraeth a’r cylch
You can focus on anything you want to! It could be about food in the future, about how communities work, about connections and relationships, about our relationship with animals and plants, how politics works, economy, rituals and ceremonies, how decisions are made, land use and ownership, how towns and cities work, reimaginging the buildings we live in, about equality and justice, health, social care, information, technology, waste, water, rethinking work, time, learning, travel, tourism… Basically everything needs a re-think!
And if you write (or record a video or a voice message) about what you’ve made, to explain more about it, please send it in to us, and we will show it on these pages.
How to get started?
Take a look at the invitations and responses to our Cwrs Utopias Bach Course!
You could start with…
an idea - perhaps you have an idea about something you’d like to see happen in the future?
an observation - have you noticed something that seems to suggest a different way of being?
an object - perhaps you have a little object or a particular material, or decide to make a mini-placard or scene of placards, or a mini-monument celebrating a change you’d like to see
a place - is there somewhere you care for and/or worry about?
a person or community (human or non-human) - what might make life better for them?
an issue or activity - is there something that needs to change? how could you envisage it in the future?
an event - could you somehow include the idea of focusing on utopias bach
a group - if you are part of a sewing group or community group perhaps the group could work on some utopias bach?
See here for examples of Utopias Bach, made by the Penrhyndeudraeth a’r Cylch Utopias Bach group
And see here for our work with young people and schools
Or try one of our resources below - including a guided visualisation that will take you to your Utopia Bach in 2050, or to a parallel world, as a human or a more-than-human!
Future Farm, Lisa Hudson 2021
How to guides and examples
Make a miniature book or manifesto - what would you describe, suggest, illustrate?
Make a garden on a plate - who/what would your garden (or park or other green space) be for? where would it be? how would it connect to others? what is revolutionary about it?
“The power of solidarity with the plants is that with a bit of soil and one seed we can begin the work of transformation – we can activate processes to heal the planet”
- Dr Natasha Myers
Utopias Bach yn Siop Mela, Penrhyndeudraeth, 2021
Make a diorama (a little scene in a box) - what scene from the future might you want to make? where would it be? who would be in it? what might they be doing? how is it different to now?
The Great Big Tiny Design Challenge - series on all 4 (created by a company in Wales). What would you do to bring the ‘dolls house’ out of the past and into the future?
The Craftivist Collective - how would you make something crafty to spark a tiny change in something? what new way of thinking or being might it prompt? how can sewing be radical?
Make a mini-monument - how would you like monuments to be different? who/what would monuments be to? how would they help create and celebrate a diverse and equal society?
Make a mini-placard - how would you describe what you’d like in your Utopia bach? how would you like to be/what would you be doing/experiencing? Malenkiy Piket is new form of protest against the #war in #Ukraine is spreading in #St Petersburg. People make with all kinds of tiny material figurines they hold signs, flags and more against the war and then place these mini-protesters around the city in the most disappeared places. Finally, they take a photo and send it to the #Instagram account malenkiy_piket (small protest)
Hold a micro-conversation - who would you like to have a conversation with? what might you explore together? how might it change relationships or overcome mis understandings, political or cultural differences?
Make a Little Earth - what would a little earth look like if we carried it in our pocket as a talisman for the future?
Secret artists creating miniature buildings for street mice - a great example of making (and placing) miniatures with a serious message
GRRRLS in the Garej and the mini-monument lab - an example of combining research, art, events and performance
Or see our Utopias Bach experiments
Examples from our experiments
Gruff Ellis Jolley (2020): Floating Farm to Feed
“With the sea levels rising and consumption for farm land leading to deforestation and habitat loss it may come to a point were farming on sea may become a legitimate option. I imagine these floating bio-domes to each have different climates to grow a verity of veg and fruit capable of supporting a variety of annimals within them, all connected together by a series of bridges.these large floating structures could also suport habitats for small creatures to latch onto. With new farming space we would no longer have to expand into annimals habitats and we would have a sufficient food source with many more jobs available to accompany it.”
Wanda Zyborska (2008) Wanda and Trish go South: An Australian Utopia Bach
“Two cherished mini ideas were first to come to the surface; one was to make mini-(no)places to go under the domes I have been collecting over the years. The other was a mini-(utopian)-landscape, peopled by mini-people, this should manifest within a bigger landscape. This idea is one of my oldest, arising from childhood imaginings in the vast spaces of Australia, where I devised tiny peopled landscapes within landscapes projected imaginatively on the landscape around me in chosen places, like the gullies alongside the road, as a coping mechanism to avoid being overwhelmed by the enormous scale of that country. I know from experience the pleasurable escapist benefits of this kind of mini-utopic imaginings, manifest in dolls houses and miniature towns and villages. They can be nostalgic and sad, as in The Bottle city of Kandor in Superman, miniaturised and saved when the planet Krypton was destroyed by the supervillain Brainiac. An example of the dark side of miniaturising utopias. I must keep something of the dystopian in my mini-utopias, they must never reach the horror of the realised utopia, utopia must be something strived for but not quite arrived at or fixed, if it wants to avoid the dangers spelled out in literature and fact in utopian exploits of the past. I want to keep the striving for utopia in process, on a moving polarity of deterritorialisation.”
Samina Ali’s Utopias Bach
“Miniature utopian worlds created in nature, based on specific themes and inspired by the locality I live in – which keeps changing as I gypsy around in my caravan, living simply with the earth and discovering new natural beauty around North Wales. Ones I have created to date….
Inspiring spiritual connection to nature connections with love… A stone circle with a magical elemental component to create a sense of wonder…using Pentir mossy rock, more local moss, slate from nearby, Citrine gemstones discovered on the ground at a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka, naked figure as a faery elemental with wings from a very small bird found on the ground nearby my caravan in Pentir
What is our version of ceremony in these times (Winter of 2020)? A stone circle clearing with people doing ceremony around a fire with elemental representations as naked figures. Made with wood, nearby moss, nearby slate, ash made from burning local wood near dwelling in Pentir. Plastic miniature models/men/faeries. Also made with 2 children’s impromptu involvement and inspirations!
The evolution of mother nature reclaiming slate tips. 2 slate tips reclaimed by nature’s amazing way she brings beauty back to areas desolate or pillaged by human interference. Invoking a mystical element too with the inclusion of a miniature stone circle – something that keeps arising organically in my miniature utopias which hasn’t been planned apart from in the 1st one! Made from local slate in Fron – where I have now moved to! Plants, heather, moss, lichen, and quartz crystal from Mynydd Mawr nearby.
Derelicts – future development and usage for creating basic natural homes, local art /creative studios, communal gathering spaces for meetings, ceremonies etc….work in progress….Derelicts recreated and then using local dumped rubbish and other recyclables – creating innovative and creative ways to honor, celebrate and utilize these spaces. Made using local slate in y Fron, wood, local heather, local crystal quartz, local rubbish, recycling of tins, plastic bottles – all used/bought locally. “
Lisa Hudson: Witness
“My personal Utopias bach will be a research project based in my garden. I will be observing Utopian systems that exist in the small space that I also inhabit. I will begin by observing the wild strawberries in the southwestern corner of my garden. I will draw them, photograph them and document their growth. My role will be just that of witness.
My usual approach would be to study them as a model or a metaphor for an inter-human relationship or process, or I would look at them and wonder what I need to learn from them for my personal growth. This as an acquisitional approach that I want to challenge. My observation of the strawberry and research into its properties, histories and symbolism has no goal beyond that of learning about the strawberry plant and observing it as what it is rather than what it is for or what it means to me.”