Night School on Anarres: Imaginings of an Anarchist Utopia

Featured in:
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Germany 2017
Gothenburg University, Sweden, 2017
Apollo magazine, U.K. 2016
I-D Vice, U.K. 2016
New Scientist, U.K. 2016
Climactic: Post-Normal Design, U.S.A. 2016
This is Tomorrow magazine, U.K. 2016
Little Atoms, U.K. 2016
Paths to Utopia at Somerset House, U.K. 2016
King's College London, U.K. 2016
     
Production year: 2016
Film running time: 00:06:33:00
     
Mediums: animation produced with hand-drawn illustrations animated in After Effects and Cinema4D • installation materials consisted on MDF cut-outs painted with hand-drawn illustrations using acrylic inks • other installation materials included anarchist books, a custom carpet and badges that were given away to visitors • workshop props made with hand-drawn illustration screen-printed on cardboard.

Night School on Anarres was an educational experiment examining the utopian proposals of twentieth-century anarchism. A collaboration between designers and artists Onkar Kular and Noam Toran with Nestor Pestana.

Drawing from Ursula K. Le Guin’s seminal sci-fi novel The Dispossessed, and focusing on her construction of the fictional anarchist planet Anarres and its language Pravic, school children and members of the public were ‘transported’ to an alien school to participate in language and social studies classes.

Part sci-fi set, part classroom, part roundhouse theatre, the Night School on Anarres installation was a site where utopic ambitions could be collectively imagined, performed and discussed. Through novel pedagogic approaches, the installation invited participants to learn about the planet's language, customs and behaviours. In so doing, the project encouraged visitors to reflect upon current socio-political models with the hope of collectively imagining alternatives.

Night School on Anarres was commissioned by King’s College London as part of Utopia 2016, a year-long program celebrating the 500th anniversary of the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia.

Click here to download Tau-ceti Anarres, an anarchist typeface designed to be traced by hand. It is sans-serif and monospaced, and it will call you 'profiteer' if you use capitals.