HETEROTOPIAS
Heterotopias graphic
7 April 2023
Robyn Mallery
Heterotopias and the theme “The Space Between” is everywhere & in everyone, but once you start thinking about spaces in art & in society now, those in-between spaces become more prevalent, in tangible world, social- online spaces, fictional, or in our own headspace’s.
The word itself was once a medical term , ‘Heterotopia’ - Foucault borrowed the word and re-coined it as a geographical term for spaces of otherness to describe cultural, institutional, & discursive spaces that are ‘other’. Heterotopias are worlds within worlds, mirroring and yet upsetting that which is outside. Such as ships, cemeteries, bars, public gardens, fairs, public baths, churches. More recently Baudrillard would present digital spheres and genders as heterotopias. Museums and art galleries present us with heterotopias of time, displaced and fragmented, objects from different eras and cultures. Heterotopias of ritual are spaces such as a prisons or hospitals where they are isolated and penetrable but not freely accessible. Then there are heterotopias of illusion that expose that which is not within it or a heterotopia of compensation. Haus A Rest invited artists and writers to explore this theme and use it to create some exciting and thought-provoking work, show them how we interpret those other spaces formed by our social structures.
See the rest of the artists and read the full issue here.
As the prompt mentions, a heterotopia is a world within a world. Such worlds exist all around us, overlooked every day. Collages are a unique way of expressing this concept of a hidden world, or perhaps hidden perspective, that’s there all along. Fragments of memories, ideas, and thoughts come together as something new and sometimes not all that pleasant. It is a beautiful and perfect representation of life in its notable imperfection.
Thank you for reading!
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