Loewn Whyman
Between the Utopia, and Nothing.
Between where utopian ideals lie and where they do not, exists a ‘heterotopia’. This is a social theory concept coined by Michael Foucault to describe certain discursive, cultural and institutional spaces that are somehow ‘other’.
Utopian ideals are concerned with what would be considered the perfect society. As a utopia can never be an actuality, these ideas are transformed into spaces that undertake social order for the perfection of society and the individual within the space.
A heterotopia is the blurred in-between that unsettles these spaces, it resists the process of social ordering through the way it makes things appear out of place, to show its ‘otherness’. It brings to light a sense of uncertainty, and it challenges the order.
To look at the relationship between a utopia and a heterotopia is to also look at the relationship between freedom and control. I have positioned my studio space to be the heterotopia between the utopian ideals held by my educational institution, and nothingness. It is what lies in-between freedom and control.
I invite the audience to participate within the space, to interact with everything that fills it in order to uncover the dialogue.
