UTOPIA WALKS AWAY
ORAL HISTORIES OF INFRASTRUCTURE IN COPENHAGEN, DENMARK.
2016
This collection of oral histories explores Copenhagen’s seemingly utopic municipal infrastructures. As we peek into the daily lives of the Danes, we glimpse how infrastructure takes on a uniquely evolved form in this country of 400 islands and 5 million people.
We see a sewage treatment plant that recycles “sludge” as fertilizer for farms, a post office that sends a monumental fleet of bicycles to deliver mail across the city, and a group of neighbours who built an offshore wind farm. Unfortunately, we also see the traditional Danish ethic of cooperation and communality being threatened by the influence of neo-corporate takeovers.
We discover a utopia that is walking away.
Artist and author Katherine Ball collected these interviews during a Fulbright Fellowship at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Walls and Space. The interviews were edited by Teddy Marino, an author based in Madison, Wisconsin. The book was riso printed at May Day Rooms in London, UK, an archive and resource center for experimental and marginal cultures and their histories and at LikeLichen Press in Wales. The graphic design of the book features a red cloth motif.
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Downloadable PDF - Print Quality - 15 mb
