Utopia School

*** :) :) OPEN CALL :) :) ***

Utopia School is announcing the upcoming Fall 2021 session, taking place in Kingsbury, Texas! Hosted by the sustainable farm, educational space and artists residency Habitable Spaces, we will co-create a curriculum which addresses the needs and concerns of rural and global citizens.

We are hosting an OPEN CALL for:

- Classes: online and in-person

- Artists/Scientists/Builders/Chefs/Thinkers-in-residence: to take part in the residency program at Habitable Spaces and learn/teach with us at the school

- Virtual engagement: Engage with the school virtually via instructionals, digital installations, interventions, writings, film screenings, and other possibilities we haven’t thought of yet.

- Local engagement: Do you live in the vicinity of Kingsbury? Local resource sharing is very important to the school. Please join us!

We are working on subsidizing travel and other costs. Housing and food will be provided. All classes and programming for the Utopia School will be held outdoors.

DEADLINE, SEPTEMBER 15th

APPLY HERE

Rivet Rivet is a unified search platform designed to help you find and activate opportunities to advance your creative practice.

I am devastated to share news of the passing of David Francois Rey who left this plane on September 9th, 2018.

Francois, you are missed by countless people who had the opportunity to know you– those closest to you, and those who met you even just briefly were changed by your light.

Francois, your spirit continues to give us hope, joy, and inspiration. Your visions of a better world gave us all a glimpse of what we can create and we will not stop fighting to work towards these visions.

I remember first meeting you around shared food– food you saved from waste and made available to anyone who wanted or needed it. I remember being so struck by your generosity and energy, your belief in what it possible. In your ideas and your actions I saw how one person creates a ripple effect of change around them that can inspire countless people. The world will be transformed when we all live with such integrity. You showed us how it can be so.

Thank you, Francois, for all you gave to your community, friends and strangers alike.

With love and gratitude,

Jaime
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Open Call! We are seeking classes, workshops, film screenings and more for our Open House on April 2018, and for our ongoing Sunday School classes throughout the Spring and Summer. Deadline for April Open House: June 11th!

Open Call: April 2018 Sunday School | Utopia School Following up on January’s 5 day session of Utopia School, a small group of organizers have been convening in Bushwick to discuss what an ongoing, permanent free-school might look like in New York City. There are several free educational projects in the New York City region. How can we work togethe...

Advice on organizing from Black Lives Matter Charleston's Muhiyidin d'Baha The Flag Bearer

This session of the Utopia School took place between January 25-29th
For a Full List of Classes, see:
http://www.utopiaschool.org/node/302/schedule

This session of the Utopia School took place between January 25-29th
For a Full List of Classes, see:
http://www.utopiaschool.org/node/302/schedule

This session of the Utopia School took place between January 25-29th
For a Full List of Classes, see:
http://www.utopiaschool.org/node/302/schedule

This is important. An incident took place at the Utopia School last weekend, which is addressed in the statement below. Please read and feel welcome to respond/reach out to us with any experiences or feedback. This post will be moderated by someone who was present at the time.

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A statement addressing Safer Spaces transgression at the Utopia School:

An incident took place at the Utopia School this past weekend which needs to be addressed both for its affects on anyone present, as well as for the shaping of the school moving forward and a clarification of the school's intentions.

On Saturday, January 27th, during a Q&A following the talk on the Albany Free School the conversation diverted to the subject of White Privilege and instances in which call-outs around White Privilege have caused rifts in communities. From there, the conversation turned towards white people sharing their experiences of being oppressed and/or their difficulties confronting their own white privilege. This conversation should have been interrupted and flagged as being problematic within the first few moments, but it continued for 10 minutes before finally being cut off by the class facilitator. It was never the intention to allow space for a conversation like this to take place at the school. However, it took place. This conversation, and other sentiments similar to it caused an unsafe environment at the school.

As the primary facilitator of the Utopia School, I deeply and wholeheartedly apologize for not intervening into this conversation sooner. The aim of the Utopia School is to create an open space for sharing our visions of Utopia, paths towards getting closer to those visions and future attempts to co-create that together. That mission is demolished the moment that it centers whiteness and white experience. I want to apologize to anyone affected by this experience, or anything similar at the school. Other organizers of the school and myself also want to make clear that not only do we wish to address this particular instance, but seek to get to the root of this issue and build a broader framework for accountability.

Some of us have suggested that for any potential future sessions/incarnations of the Utopia School we seek to appoint volunteers to each class specifically with the task of moderating and intervening immediately should a similar situation arise. Some of us have had the idea to also seek to provide resources to anyone in need of working through their relationship to privilege and if possible a separate space to have those conversations.

If anyone would like to contribute to what has been outlined above, to share experiences, or has suggestions/ideas for alternative ways to move forward, please be in touch. Some ongoing working groups will be coming out of the school which could be a positive forum for creating a safer environment in the future.

– Jaime Iglehart (Jaime Idea)

Utopia School will be OPEN on Monday, for anyone interested in starting a long term space.