Utopian World Championship

HISTORY OF THE UWC

We launched the first championship on March 10, 2001 – in cooperation with the artist group Swe.De – with an event at the venue Culturen, in the Swedish city of Västerås, and by issuing a call for participation that was distributed mainly through the internet and e-mail.

The call resulted in a steady influx of registrations to our website and by the time of the deadline on June 30 2001, 78 people had signed up, of which 18 went on to post essays to our website. The election process commenced after the website was closed for submission in the end of August the same year. In the first selection round, internet users elected seven finalists in an online poll and we – SOC.Stockholm – completed the round by choosing three essays for the final among the remaining entries.

In December 2001 an expert jury began the work to select one winner from the ten finalists. The members of the jury were Rebecka Lettevall (PhD History of Ideas, Teacher at Södertörns college), Edward Soja (Professor, Urban Planning Department at UCLA), Sverker Sörlin (Professor, Environmental Sciences and Ideas at Umeå University), Bo Södersten (Professor, Economics at Jönköping International Business School) and one representative from SOC.Stockholm. The winner, T.R.O.Y., was announced at The Utopian W.C. 2001 Gala at Gallery Enkehuset in Stockholm on January 19, 2002.

During the following years we presented the project in many different contexts. We took part in exhibitions and events in Stockholm, Reykjavik, Dublin, Helsinki, Riga, Toronto, Melbourne and Göteborg, and held a number of lectures about the project. We travelled to Australia to interview visionaries, academics, artists and activists and visited an intentional community in Findhorn, Scotland. We sent the first edition of the winning essay to Heads of State all over the world and delivered the document to Iceland’s President in person.

The second championship was launched in September 2002 at Kulturhuset (the House of Culture) in Stockholm as a part of the exhibition The Public Opinion, and was further promoted in other exhibitions, for example at Gallery Hlemmur in Reykjavik (2003) and Temple Bar Gallery & Studios in Dublin (2004). 153 people signed up for participation this time and 23 of them posted complete essays on the deadline April 30, 2004.

This time we invited four people to form a reference group, together with three members from SOC.Stockholm and the first champion, with the task to elect five finalists, which was accomplished by mid-October the same year. Two expert jurors; Tom Moylan (Professor of Contemporary Writing in English and Director of the Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies at the University of Limerick), and Dr. Lyn Carson, (Senior Lecturer in Applied Politics at the University of Sydney, evaluated the five finalists’ essays and cast a vote each for their favourites. The reference group’s favourite received a third vote. Cyril Belshaw was declared winner with two out of three votes with Per Norbäck as the runner up.

Mr. Belshaw was announced champion on a gala night at Färgfabriken in Stockholm on April 2, 2005, and travelled from Canada to receive his prize.

 

KEY EVENTS OF THE PROJECT

2001
March 10: Opening of the 1st Utopian World Championship at Culturen, Västerås.
June 30: Deadline for competing proposals.
August 31: The public elects seven finalists, SOC elects three.
December 20: A Jury composed of four people and one representative from SOC.Stockholm selects one winner.
Lectures at the events "Art of Organising" in Stockholm and during a workshop in Minsk.

2002
January 19: the winner, who uses the pseudonym T.R.O.Y., is announced at a prize gala at the Enkehuset Gallery in Stockholm.
July: the first version of the winner document i printed
May: SOC.Stockholm receives funding for the forthcoming UWC World Tour
August 23: The 2nd Utopian W.C. is launched in conjunction with the exhibition "The Public Opinion" at Kulturhuset Stockholm
August 30: Participation in Free Forum Gothenburg
September 10: Announcements and performance at the main square Sergels Torg in Stockholm
November 11: Utopian WC World Tour Australia workshop in SOC's premises in conjunction with the arts event "Southern Comfort"
Oct 12 to Nov 30: Utopian W.C. exhibition at Passagen Linköping in conjunction with the exhibition "Sex & Politics"

2003
Jan 24 to March 16: Exhibition with Utopian W.C. at the spring salon at Liljevalchs Art center in Stockholm
May 15 - 18: Participation in the ART+Communication festival in Riga.
July 25: Tropical Fun, a utopian one day event in the premises of SOC.
Oct 4 to 26: Exhibiton at Gallery Hlemmur in Reykjavik
Oct 7: Meeting with the Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson to deliver the final document from the 1st Utopian W.C.
Nov 1 to 8: Two members of SOC visits the Findhorn community in Scotland.
Nov 12 to Dec 5: Three members of SOC travels to Australia to meet utopians.
Dec 22: 50 Final Documents delivered by mail to Heads of State all over the world.

2004
Jan 30 to March 6: Exhibition at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios
Feb 15: Deadline to enter the 2nd Utopian W.C.
April 30: Dealine for submitting of proposals
May 22: Lecture at the Green Partys conference in Ronneby, Sweden
Sept/Oct: Work of the reference group
Nov/Dec: Work of the expert jury

2005
April 2: Belshaw is announced winner at a Gala night at Färgfabriken in Stockholm.
April 3: the first UWC Conference

2009
Release of a new edition of the UWC Documents in cooperation with Raketa Press

2010
June 23-July 6, Participation in the Knot, Ursynów, Warzaw, launch of the third UWC
September, participation at Göteborg book fair, with Raketa Press, public talk with T.R.O.Y.