At the heart of Alterotopia’s becoming lies a celebratory practice of thinking-with and making-with, or simply put creative encountering. A practice at the intersection of art, science and activism, which prefigures how our relations to the earth and each other can become otherwise, more just and plural. The ‘with’ in these creative encounters can refer to many different things. From encounters between practices such as the one that has given rise to Alterotopia, to encounters with earthly places of change, to a generative thinking with the concepts and artworks of others. Whether or not they involve active collaboration or physical presence, creative encounters are inherently relational and generative: those who engage in them are bound to be affected and changed.
The list below provides an overview of the type of entities we are and will be thinking-, and making-with:
1) places of change, soils, landscapes and temporalities that invite us to broaden our perspective beyond the individual, human and short-term and deepen our conceptualisation of agency, power and belonging.
2) creative practices & initiatives that inspire and nurture radically different ways of relating to the earth and to each other.
3) artists, poets and scholars whose words, concepts, art and music resonate with what Alterotopia is bringing into being.
4) happenings & events which revolve around Alterotopian creative encounters
In resonating we will be adding inspiring examples of each of these to give a better sense of the type of entangled, earthly and artistic encounters we hope to nurture and conceptualise further in Alterotopia.
Taking a speculative leap ahead, we imagine an Alterotopian practice of creative encountering to be about entangling our longing for and prefiguration of the otherwise with specific places of change. From expressive writing and conceptual exploration, to embodied experiences of relational power-with, to collaborations and happenings we cannot yet imagine.
Nurturing a practice of creative encountering answers the desire to bring forth through correspondence, attunement and thoughtful engagements, a way of thinking, seeing and creating with others, with matter and with life: generative, celebratory and generous.
Any which way they come, Alterotopian creative encounters are our way of staying attuned to the pain and injustice in our world, while attending to the seeds for so many worlds and futures otherwise. Seeds which are also and already here, but might remain unseen or marginalised by dominant systems of extraction, exploitation and othering. These seeds are not utopian (grounded in no place), but alterotopian: grounded in actual material and temporal entanglements, that constitute the myriad of minor realities in which we also, already dwell.
—–
For a longer read on the ideas behind our budding practice of Alterotopian encountering see Marijke de Pous figuring of Alterotopian Creative Encountering.