The hope in Utopias can be found in the final section, curated by the Whitworth Young Contemporaries, a diverse group of 16 to 24-year-olds. Contradictions are rife Walter’s more literal map locates a “place where they come to get away” next to “no trespassing” and Perry’s “botox” and “eternal life” buildings are next-door neighbours. Walter’s Nova Utopia and Perry’s Map of an Englishman are minutely detailed, black-and-white maps that reveal the impossibility of a perfect location. There is light relief in Grayson Perry and Stephen Walter’s critiques of the utopian ideal. Sweaty-palmed and stressed, by the time I reach the soft clouds and luscious greenery of Palmer, Constable and Turner, I find no affection for the land that has nurtured me all my life. Photograph: Courtesy the Whitworth, University of Manchester Reminiscent of a Ukip campaign … William Hogarth’s The Invasion, Plate 1: France, 1756. This wallpaper hangs in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House. Smart, expensively dressed Europeans in carriages and steamboats arrive into a stunning landscape akin to Eden to the side, a group of stereotypical Native Americans dance, adorned in leaves and feathers. Nathan Coley’s lightworks are covered in handprinted Zuber wallpaper inspired by the pilgrims who “founded” America. Lilian Lancaster’s 19 th century “comic maps” of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales refer to England as “a Queen – Victoria, Queen of Hearts” and Scotland as “a gallant piper, struggling through the bogs, his wind bag broken, wearing his clay clogs”. Utopian propaganda is all over this exhibition and none of it is comfortable viewing. Text under the first plate reads: “But soon we’ll teach these bragging foes that beef and beer give heavier blows than soup and roasted frogs.” The pure stupidity of it would be laughable if it wasn’t for its similarities to Ukip’s Breaking Point campaign, where fleeing refugees are reframed as hordes of unruly intruders. The second plate is set in England, where someone is drawing a crude painting of the French and the troops stand smartly in the background. Produced in response to fears of a French invasion, the first plate depicts a French rabble, disorderly and disorganised, sharpening axes and pointing guns. The red-faced shame that is slowly climbing up my neck reaches fever pitch when I arrive at William Hogarth’s invasion plates from 1756. Both works are about land and borders, but whereas Roberts reflects on the preservation of one nation, the map quietly highlights the hypocrisy in plundering and invading numerous others with total disregard. Vivid green grass gives way suddenly to white jagged cliffs that fall away into the sea – this is the gap between the UK and the rest of the world, it is the natural boundary that keeps others out. A 1920s map of the British Empire with the UK proudly at the centre sits alongside a 2018 photograph, Between the Acts by Simon Roberts, of people walking along the Seven Sisters cliffs in Sussex. Photograph: Courtesy the artist and Parafin, London/Peter Malletīeginning with a first edition of More’s 1516 book, the exhibition is arranged thematically rather than chronologically to uncover our timeless utopian obsessions. Utopian propaganda … Nathan Coley’s You Don’t Know About Me, 2019. It was the main motivator behind Brexit – regardless of which way you voted – and if that nearly 50/50 vote is anything to go by, Brexit holds the key to why we’ll never find utopia no one can agree on what it should look like. Because, despite the fact “utopia” famously derives from the Greek ou-topos and means “no place”, the idea of a golden future is still a captivating concept. Centuries have passed since More set out his idealistic future, but our utopian dreams seem to have struggled to develop beyond a desire to own a small patch of the planet where private castles can be maintained, and a particular culture can be protected and promoted.Īt the dawn of Brexit, Utopias at the Whitworth in Manchester draws together art, literature and maps from a range of sources and artists to try to work out why the search is still on for a land flowing with milk and honey. Looking down at this isolated kingdom on the day the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, I am reminded of another island that imagined its green and pleasant land as a glorious haven if it could only “take back control”. Near the front of Thomas More’s 16th century book Utopia there is an illustration of a small island, dotted with rolling hills and populated with neat little castles from the harbour a large ship sets off, presumably to conquer faraway lands and preach its vision of a perfect world.
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