Mae Cymuned Utopias Bach yn gymuned amrywiol, ddwyieithog ac yn dysgu trwy weithredoedd yn agored i bawb sydd gan ddiddordeb mewn Utopias Bach.

Dan ni’n artistiaid, ‘gysylltyddion cymuned’, academiaid, awduron a siaradwyr gwadd, o Gymru a’r byd, sy’n gweithio efo’i gilydd i gynhyrchu syniadau, cefnogi ‘arbrofion’ a datblygu diwylliant o ddatblygu personol a phroffesiynol wrth rannu sgiliau a gwybodaeth mewn ymarferion celf cydweithredol, yn gweithio efo cymunedau a gweithio ar raddfa fach gyda dychymyg radical.

Dan ni’n chwilio am gwestiynau yn hytach nag atebion, neu o leiaf byddwn yn ceisio osgoi canlyniadau anhyblyg.

Dan ni’n ystyried ein hunain i fod yn datblygu diwylliant ar raddfa fach fel un o’n cynigion tuag at Utopia Bach. Byddwn yn gweithio gyda’n gilydd gyda gofal a pharch tuag at ein gilydd a phawb fydd yn cymeryd rhan, gan dalu sylw at broses, dulliau a’n datblygiad ni’n hunain yn yr arbrawf hwn.

The Utopias Bach Collaboratory is a diverse, bilingual, action-learning community open to all who are interested in Utopias Bach.

We are artists, ‘community connectors’, academics, writers and invited speakers, from Wales and internationally, who work together to generate ideas, support ‘experiments’ and develop a culture of personal and professional development by sharing skills and knowledge in co-created art practice, working with communities and working at small scale with radical imagination.

We seek questions rather than answers, or at least we will avoid rigid conclusions.

We consider ourselves to be developing a miniature culture as one of our attempts towards a Utopia Bach.  We will work with care and respect to each other and all who take part, paying attention to our process, methods and our own becoming in this experiment.

Dogfennu & Dysgu Documenting & Learning

We are committed to finding ways to document and learn together without it all getting overwhelming!

We’ve started a padlet of resources and insights and activities as a timeline, and have started compiling ‘aspirations’ or principles and questions for Utopias Bach:

We have identified three types of documentation:

• Thread, flow, intent (eg see our padlet)

• Material for a purpose (eg to share learning on something)

• Individual moments of insight/significance (postcard exchange)

We recognise that not everything can be ‘captured’, and want to avoid an overwhelming body of documentation.

We are approaching documentation as an art in itself, so for example, postcards from our postcard exchange might be brought together to create an exhibition. We are also working with meeting recordings, doing blogs and sharing sources of ideas and inspirations in our library.

In 2023 we started working on our Cwilt Utopias Bach quilt as a way of embodying our principles and ways of working, experimenting with ‘non-paper based policies’ in partnership with Rewilding the Artist.

We are always interested in any responses/ documentation you might wish to share, so if you have any documentation ideas please get in touch. More details here

See below for documentation experiments.

Beth dan ni’n neud
What we do

We are currently working on:

1. Trying out making your own Utopia Bach, in whatever form, as a way of building examples and learning about the potential of Utopias Bach. You can see the results of our early experiments shown at Geocache Bach, as part of Metamorffosis, June 2021

2. We are sharing ideas for and progress of ‘community based’ experiments, each one going at its own pace, and some just remaining as ideas…

3. In 2024 we will be 4 years old! We are developing Utopias Bach as a whole. See here for how we are (always) rethinking what Utopias Bach might be, how it might work etc.

Aelodau / Members

The Collabatory is open to all! Those attending include:

Lindsey Colbourne, Samina Ali, Lisa Hudson, Wanda Zyborska, Seran Dolma, Roger Hughes, Perminder Dhillon, Catrin Ellis, Julie Upmeyer, Frances Williams, Steph Shipley, Maggie Doherty, Mark Gahan, Iain Biggs, Audrey West, Debbie Braden, Andrew de Salis, Llinos Griffin, Wendy Dawson, Lynsey Smith, Lee Green, Sarah Pogoda, Siân Shakespear, Elinor Gwyn, Emily Meilleur, Sarah Holyfield, Patsy Moffett, Wanda Garner, Gruff Ellis, Paul Haswell, Nicole le Maire, Huw Jones, Lana Feldmann, Marian Brosschot, Gaia Redgrave, David Cleary, Katie Trent, Irene Gonzalez, Cat Lewis, Emma-Jayne Holmes, Mair Jones, Emily Wilkinson, Sian Hutchinson, Julia Wilson, El Davies, Lal Davies, Roxy Plaza, Sioned Huws, Sarah Louise-Wheeler, Ed Straw, Femke Gent, Sian Hutchinson, Fiona Fraser-Smith, Verity Williams, Arwel Jones, Sian Elen, Nina Othen, Marged Pendrell, Les Johannes, Elen Pennant, Karine Decorne, Tryne Moore, Mary Thomas, Myfanwy Jones, Peter Hughes, Lucy Finchett-Maddock, Jeff Morgan, Odette Baber, Craig Stewart, David Garner, Siân Cwpwr, Carys Anne Hughes, Julia Wilson, Charlotte Elvin, Dani Abulhawa.

Os hoffech chi dderbyn gwahoddiadau i’n cyfarfodydd, os gwelwch yn dda llenwch y ffurflen isod:

If you’d like to receive invitations to our meetings please fill in the form below:

Cyfarfodydd/digwyddiadau
Meetings/events

We meet once a month (on two different days) over zoom and/or physical meetings as/when that is possible. Each meeting is hosted by a different person. Sometimes we just meet to share where we are at, sometimes we focus on one person’s work, sometimes we’ll have a guest ‘speaker’ or maybe we’ll go on visits etc. If you would like to ‘host’ a collaboratory meeting, or introduce a topic or question or share your work, we’d love to hear from you! lindsey.colbourne@me.com

You are welcome to attend a meeting to see if you enjoy it - no commitment needed!

Our meeting process

We make sure we review how the meetings are going - at the start, middle and end of each meeting, and we will be sharing the facilitation of the meetings. Here’s a rough outline of structure for our zoom meetings:

- start with clear purpose

- build learning about the process of the meetings into the meeting - e.g. at the start, ask what we need to remember from last meeting; in the middle review how it’s going (e.g. in smaller groups); at the end review how it has been

- introduce some suggestions for how to take part effectively (e.g. notice how much talking you are doing; build in space to think; take time out; think where your contribution is coming from - an observation, information, serious point etc)

- if/how to record.

We have started sending each other postcards to ‘capture’ individual moments of insight/significance. This is an example of trying to approach documentation as an art in itself, and for example, our postcards are occasionally brought together to create an exhibition.

Eglurhad anelglur gan Seran Dolma

Reflections on the postcard exchange by Julie Upmeyer

See also our Deconstructed Conference page

Sound documentation experiments

(Try these with headphones if you have them)

Self-documentation

Peaceful Play event (collaboratory 14.5.22) by Gaia Redgrave

As part of Gaia’s Cathedral of the Trees experiment, Gaia invited us to play, to our wildest imagination and embrace peace through play. We were asked to document the process / the outcome (in anyway we choose) and share on social media (especially Instagram) using the following hashtags.

#cathedralofthetrees #utopiasbach #peace #gaiaredgrave #play #conversationswithtrees #nature

Gaia also welcomed photos and short films to be sent to the email address below so that we can re-post them to The Cathedral of the Trees Instagram page.

See the results here: The Instagram Page

Collaborative writing and blogs

Combining words, images, sound from various people. Led by Seran Dolma, Awdur Preswyl

Manifestos for the future

Our November 2022 collaboratory was held in collaboration with the Being Human Festival. We explored how human and more-than-human people can break through to new relationships with place, and how to create a maniffesto of place - see the results here

Video documentation experiments

Collaborative hosting

Starting in September 2021, each of our Collaboratories is hosted by a different person. If you would like to ‘host’ a collaboratory meeting, or suggest a location or a topic, we’d love to hear from you! lindsey.colbourne@me.com

We have also started working with other groups and organisations to collaboratively host our Collaboratories. These have included Oriel Brondanw, Oriel Mostyn and Hwb Bangor (Being Human Festival, Bangor University)

Zoom Exquisite Corps - Wanda Zyborska

Initially all our activities took place on Zoom, so I explored the composition and aesthetics of Zoom, and experimented with different visual possibilities, such as setting up exquisite corpses composed between screens. At the end of a meeting when there were only three of us left on screen, we made exquisite corpses, working out how we could line up the screens one above the other to make the three separate spaces that equate to the folded paper (and make up the disconnected/reconnected body parts) appear the same in each of our screens:

We have made a few of these now. The exquisite corpse is a Surrealist visual tool that we frequently utilise in Utopias Bach in different media to try and free our imaginations. Another visual intervention on Zoom is using the various video filters, as Sarah Pogoda is doing in the top frame of the exquisite corpse in figure 2. Her more usual choice of filter was a mouse's nose and whiskers. We also tried various backgrounds that can overlap the individual's body, and the margins are another medium for visual play

The Mondrian-like rectangular divisions of Zoom are each a separate moving portrait.  I found myself watching myself at the same time as talking to others. How much we can see of each body (head only? torso? top of head?), and what of the varied, usually domestic, backgrounds, including occasional pets, children and other family members? I began performing inside my border, making shapes and breaking up the edges with my arms, moving or being still, trying to get my legs into the frame. Others joined in. When someone was sad we all spread our arms and tried to make visual a group hug.

Sound - El Davies (Keeper of Sounds)

Taking inspiration from the connection of isolated individuals via Zoom during Covid I will explore this musically using the concept of the zoom screen comprising many individual squares making up a combined whole group on the screen.  Each individual within each square will have their own leitmotif (a memorable musical catchphase) created from the rhythms, actions and even their own name - unique to them. I aim to transcribe these musically through a variety of compositional techniques such as cryptography, morse code, 12 note magic squares and serialism…  I will bring all these individual parts- all these unique musical catchphrases- together to create a whole new exciting piece of music, unique in itself. 

Throughout the piece will be a retuning memorable motif created out of the name UTOPIUS BACH as a reminder that the sum is more than the individual parts while honouring the individual cogs and recognising that, just as the main plant on a strawberry brings everything together, they (we) are all connected.  

See El’s Cysyllte… Connecting experiment