What’s the crossover between land work and utopia? I feel there is one, although it’s hard to articulate. Isn’t utopia science fiction, set in not-real places with fictional technology? How can that relate to working the land?
Well, increasingly utopian fiction is earthbound, with characters whose physical connection with the earth go beyond our own. Think the orogenes in N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy who manipulate seismic energy, and Vern in Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland whose fungal “passenger” enables her to communicate through mycelial networks.
Then there is movement the other way, too. I recently visited the We Feed The UK exhibition across the Royal Photographic Society and Martin Parr Foundation galleries at Paintworks in Bristol. This project brought photographers and poets to farms across the UK who are growing agroecologically, eschewing intensive farming methods. Viewing the exhibition, it was clear to me the photographers and poets had seen hope in these places and were conveying this through their work.
What follows is my review of the exhibition, with a focus on the latent utopianism within its celebration of the “custodians of soil and sea”.
Continue reading ““The constellations were at our feet this whole time”: We Feed The UK’s earthy utopias”