Journey To Nutopia

JOURNEY TO NUTOPIA is an open conversation about positive future narratives that refute the inevitability of global dystopia.

Next Up: 14 August, 7pm & 27 September, 7pm 

On sale soon.

Past Events

SOUL MINING Friday 10 July, 7pm

For our July event, host Michelle Olley was joined by spiritual adept and digital sage, Vinay Gupta.

 Vice Magazine described Vinay in 2015 as ‘The Man Whose Job It Is to Constantly Imagine the Total Collapse of Humanity in Order to Save It’.

 Ultraculture’s Jason Louv described him as ‘Hindu tantric, Bucky Fuller-style engineer and blockchain evangelist’

When the 'rona arrived, it was Mattereum CEO Vinay Gupta’s Twitter threads we hit up first. Not only for a bigger picture reading, but for the baseline, practical, what-to-do-now of the societal breakdown, bog roll wars of the situation.

As we move into the ‘end’ of the UK’s first wave of the corona crisis, with restrictions and financial support receding, how can we build something new without bringing with us the obsolete, self-serving baggage of the 20th century? Or the 18th, for that matter?

Vinay Gupta’s recent essay Cutting Through Spiritual Colonialism is a khanda blade through a ton of that baggage. We will get into the rags and the riches of that essay and suppose around some ways forward that don't suck.

Vinay has never been afraid to grasp the nettle - but he also knows where to find the burdock…

Plus, tending to our wounds and lifting our spirits with Spoken Words of wonder we have Festival 23 co-founder Tim Holmes, AKA poet Buddhist Punk.
 

PESSIMISM IS FOR LIGHTWEIGHTS Friday 5 June, 2020

With the lockdown starting to ease, we are entering a new, liminal phase between the old and the new ‘normal’. Are we ready, to paraphrase Ghandi - to be the change - above and beyond the claps and rainbows?

To discuss where we’re at, how we got here and where we could be going, Nutopia host Michelle Olley was joined by cognitive historian and author, John Higgs and poet and author, Salena Godden.

As well as bringing a fresh perspective to the past/collective memory, John Higgs has a history of exploring possible futures. He’s also the man who coined the phrase Pessimism is for Lightweights. Salena Godden took that phrase and turned it into an inspirational poem, inspiring us, in part, to begin the Nutopian project.

To see more of Salena’s work, check out her latest EP, released earlier this month HERE. All proceeds to NHS Charities supplying PPE and mental health support for key workers.

SHADOWS OF TOMORROW Thursday 14 May, 2020

Many possible futures that were unimaginable in December now lie before us. What comes next? What do we want to keep and what do we want to discard from the ‘old normal’? And how much agency will we have in those shifts?

To discuss some possible outcomes good, bad and unpredictable, Nutopia host Michelle Olley was joined by futurist and cultural strategist Adah Parris and author and LSE Politics and Communication professor Baart Cammaerts.

Conversation + Q&A.Plus, poetry from The Wonderists, featuring Moksha & Tommy Calderbank.

“Chaos” - as the salty Game of Thrones character Little Finger famously said - “is a ladder.”

"The future is up for grabs. It belongs to any and all who will take the risk and accept the responsibility of consciously creating the future they want.” Robert Anton Wilson