Summary: Changing the Climate: Utopia, Dystopia and Catastrophe | Laura McLean Recently, contemporary art has seen a significant number of exhibitions worldwide exploring the topics of utopia, dystopia and our relationship with natural and built environments. This current preoccupation with possible futures and systems of living rests upon concerns about climate and energy. It asks if and how humanity will adapt, psychologically and materially, to a warming planet and an impending energy crisis after the explosive growth of the 20th century. While a sense of loss, and anticipated future loss, characterises the arts today, for many artists a reconciliatory utopia may be generated through the singularisation of systems, structures and habitats. This paper will address David Harvey’s consideration of a utopianism of process rather than spatial form. I will look at the expansion of the reconciliation of process-based and spatial utopianism in contemporary art, and work exploring the shape of the future if forecast crises are not successfully mitigated. Laura McLean is an artist, writer and curator, researching the socio-economic and ecological context of art in a post-utopian epoch. She has studied at Sydney College of the Arts, Alberta College of Art and Design, and the Universität der Künste Berlin, and will complete a residency in Shanghai later in September.
