In this Utopia Lab session, artist and writer Anna Chapman Parker presented her understanding of Utopia, looking at how creative practices can respond to feelings of uncertainty, disconnection and powerlessness. We explored a variety of drawing and reading-drawing activities through which to engage with the everyday wildness of common local plants, or ‘weeds’. We considered what Utopia means and how it can be a useful crucible in which to explore positive change.
- 10am-11am: Welcome, Warm Up and Introductions
- 11am-12:30pm: Walking – Seeing – Drawing
- 12:30pm-1:30pm: Lunch
- 1:30pm-3:30pm: Reading – Drawing – Sharing
- 3:30pm-4pm: Integration
Anna Chapman Parker is an artist and writer based in Northumberland. Her work explores relationships between drawing, writing, body and place. She is particularly interested in acts of focused observation; in how we record and report periods of looking within the increasingly mediated culture of the attention economy. She uses a variety of materials and methods from ink drawing to digital media, often navigating uncertain relationships between drawing and text.
Recent exhibitions include Sonikebana, commissioned by Edinburgh College of Art for Edinburgh Art Festival; Imprints: Art Edits Modernism at Shandy Hall, Yorkshire; and I sat till I could see no longer at Fife Contemporary Arts, St Andrews. My writing has appeared in Happy Hypocrite, MAP and Rake’s Progress.
Understorey, her first book, was published by Duckworth Books in June 2024, and was featured or reviewed in The Observer, The Scotsman and the Daily Mail.
