Utopia/Dystopia

This week, we were looking at dream worlds and nightmare worlds - utopia and dystopia.

To begin, we listened to Tony Bennett sing 'If I ruled the world' and came up with our own ideas about the sort of world we would like to create, if we were in charge - with ideas around education, peace and nature.

Next, we looked at the opening of a famous dystopia - Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four. Inspired by the way Orwell builds this world, showing not telling, but giving us clues as to the way this world operates, and how things are almost like our world but pushed to frightening and unnerving extremes, the group did their own dystopian world building - focusing on what the world might smell, look, sound and feel like, and the day to day life for an ordinary person.

Here's Christopher's gripping and evocative dystopian vignette:

A Girl Out In The Cold

by Christopher Thomson

The young girl slipped through the shadows of the abandoned
village. All lay quiet as she picked her way through the debris. Ivy had no
idea how long she had been living this life, only the need to survive. Her
father had taught her that, before he’d been taken.

Cold, wet and dark. She had been tracking the bandits for
several days, keeping her distance but always following.

She kept her spirit animal close, a small starling called
Sophia, huddled into her neck. The wind howled from the trees, whipping around
the houses and chilling her bones. The spray rain had drenched her clothes,
leaving her little more than a drowned rat picking her way through the debris.
She needed to find somewhere warm soon or she would surely perish in the bitter
cold.

“We’re very close” Sophia whispered “Just beyond this house
is a cave which is warm and dry.” Ivy nodded and half-walked, half-crawled
round the side of the stone cottage. It was only then that she noticed the
firelight and froze where she stood. Someone had already lit a fire!

And yet, no-one appeared nearby. Suspicious, Ivy crept
forward towards the warm firelight, the glow attracting her eyes, like a moth
to flame.

Finally, we returned to utopia, looking at images of futuristic eco homes, incorporating greenery/solar energy/water power/sustainability into the building and lifestyle surrounding the home. Picking one (or elements of several) the writers wrote a morning routine for someone who would live in this home - what would it feel like to live there? What jobs might need doing? How did the character interact with the natural world through their home?

Here is Tia's beautiful utopian vision:

Light jumps. The water is ready, catching it with ease. They smile up at me together, a twinkle in their eye and a song in their heart. The same song echoes in the breeze, in the birds, sounding their wake up call. I smile back at the ocean around me, unable to wait another second before diving into it’s arms. A wave embraces me in return, we are one and the same. One soul, one world.

And here is Alisa's gorgeous utopian writing:

I am living on a cloud:

it is very bouncy and spacious.

I touch the Sun,

when it is rising and setting.

It is so luminous

and the light dazzles my eyes.

I enjoy skipping on my cloud,

bouncing on it and mounting it, as if climbing the stairs.

I have a bath made of cloud bubbles often.

And when I sleep at night, I put my head on a cloud pillow and cover myself with a cloud blanket enveloped by the softest and finest cotton like foam.

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Utopia/Dystopia