Edited by Tyler Mitchell
If the year 2020 has resembled a disquieting sci-fi plot or a sinister speculative work, this year has also shown us that other ways of living are possible―if the collective will exists. But is it naive to speak of utopia today? In this issue, artists, photographers, and writers envision a world without prisons, document visionary architecture, honor queer space and creativity, and dream of liberty through spiritual self-expression. They show us that utopia is not a far-fetched scheme, or a “no place” (the literal meaning of the word), but rather a way of reconsidering the everyday. Salamishah Tillet examines Tyler Mitchell’s portraits of Black people resting in open green space, while Sara Knelman shows the liberatory possibilities of the feminist collage work of Lorna Simpson, Mickalene Thomas, Sara Cwynar, and Alanna Fields. From AfroFuturist aesthetics to the eco-idealism of Biosphere 2, the “Utopia” issue explores the role of photographs in shaping our future.
Front
Agenda
Gregory Halpern, Jo Ractliffe, Companion Pieces, Street. Life. Photography.
Day Jobs
Lou Stoppard on Koto Bolofo and Europe’s fashion world of the 1980s
Backstory
Rebecca Bengal on the making of Mary Ellen Mark’s The Book of Everything
Curriculum
Paul Graham on Garry Winogrand, green tea, and New York City
Love for a Common Way of Life
Tyler Mitchell’s vision of Black utopia
Salamishah Tillet
Dream Worlds: Five Reflections
Utopia by Subtraction
Chris Jennings
Occupy the Moment
Olivia Laing
Abolition
Nicole R. Fleetwood
Towering Ambitions
Steven S. Lee
The Rot of Stars
Elvia Wilk
Spaceship Earth
What a new documentary reveals about Biosphere 2
Matt Wolf in Conversation with Julian Rose
Dreaming & Dwelling
The architecture that imagined a new society
Mimi Zeiger
Feminist Futures
The artists who find freedom in collage
Sara Knelman
Remains of the Day
Holding space in the Middle East, ten years after the Arab Spring
Kaelen Wilson-Goldie
The Future Will See You Now
The private worlds of Black desire
Antwaun Sargent
The Black Fantastic
Speculative visions of the African diaspora
Ekow Eshun
Calling in the Spirit
For Latinx photographers, a search for belonging
Kiara Cristina Ventura
Pictures
David Benjamin Sherry
American Spirit
Yxta Maya Murray
Allen Frame
1981, NYC
Brendan Embser
Aikaterini Gegisian
The Suspended Real
Lauren Elkin
Gareth McConnell
Dream Meadows
Alistair O’Neill
Balarama Heller
Sacred Place
Pico Iyer
Back
Endnote
Five questions for the Family Acid
- Aperture 241: Utopia (Tyler Mitchell)
- Publisher: Aperture (December 8, 2020)
- Language: English
- Paperback: 140 pages
- ISBN-10: 1597114863
- ISBN-13: 9781597114868
- Item Weight: 1.85 pounds
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Dimensions: 9.25 x 0.6 x 12.01 inches