‘Utopia’ is a three-dimensional piece, depicting the geographical and topographical map of a nonexistent place. It is composed of vertically congested, carefully arranged 12,000 cement and glass fingers of 100 individuals.

This project was conceived in 2011 during my residency in Scotland and  started working on in 2015. At that time Scotland was discussing independence from Britain. Later came Brexit- the UK departing from  the European Union, and more recently my own personal Brexit… Britain has changed immensely since the referendum in 2016. Many people left the UK, some moved back, so there were massive demographic changes that fascinated me. This piece emerged from these geo-political occurrences.

  Thomas More, a British author and politician that lived in the times of Henry the 8the was the first person to write of a ‘Utopia’, a word used to describe a perfect imaginary world. More’s book by the same name, written in 1516 imagines a complex, self-contained community set on an island, in which people share common culture and way of life. He coined the word ‘Utopia’ from the Greek ou-topos meaning ‘no place’ or ‘nowhere’. It was a pun -the almost identical Greek word eu-topos means ‘a good place’. So at the very heart of the world is a vital question: can a perfect, multicultural world, ever be realised? It is unclear as to whether the book is a series of projection of a better way of life, or a satire that gave More a platform from which to discuss the chaos of European politics.