utopia 11 results

utopia
Reuben Fowkes, Maja Fowkes
Oil Rocks was a magnet for artists who in the 1950s made the strenuous journey to witness the heroism of oil workers in their battle with the elements to extract Caspian “black gold”. This presentation considers the representations of Oil Rocks in socialist art as an exception to the general invisibility of the petroleum industry in modern literature and art. How can we account for the prominence of oil drilling imagery in Soviet Azerbaijani art and what does it tell us about the petroleum imaginary of the Socialist Anthropocene?
Eva Maceková, Iva Davidová
Both authors work with fictional worlds (seemingly) untouched by humans, which serve as romanticized escapes from the chaotic reality of the present. Instead of the desired contemplation, the scenes of an untouched natural world evoke an almost disturbing feeling of permanence and death.