PRACTICAL UTOPIAS Midsummer with YKON

SPACE and Electra invite you to spend Midsummer with YKON, a special event featuring the YKON Game, an outdoor cinema, an exhibition, refreshing spirits and a hot surprise.

Programme

Sat 23 June 
At The White Building, Queens Yard, Hackney Wick

4 - 7 pm --- YKON Game (booking essential, see below)
7 - 12 pm --- Exhibition featuring YKON, Kalleinen & Kochta-Kalleinen and Ulu Braun
9.30pm --- Open air screening: Born In Flames (Lizzie Borden, USA 1983, 90 mins) with Ottica Zero (Maja Borg, Sweden 2007, 13 mins)
11pm --- end

YKON is a Helsinki based not-for-profit organization of artists, designers, game developers and art historians who share a deep interest in current utopian thought and practice. 

The YKON Game was developed 2009 - inspired by Buckminster Fuller´s World Game. The game begins as a thought experiment leading to a beautifully bizarre journey and collective attempt to alter the World. Instead of solving the common problems that we are facing, the YKON game seeks to uncover the ideas that we haven’t payed attention to yet – ideas that are sometimes wonderful and sometimes terrifying. Anyone can join - no special expertise required from the players. In short: The YKON Game is a workshop, party and therapy session in one.

Exhibition

Ulu Braun´s video Atlantic Garden is a collage-panorama-video, representing people from different ideologic backgrounds grouped around an idyllic garden.

In Tellervo Kalleinen´s and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen´s newest participatory film Archipelago Science Fiction the fears and fantasies of islanders off Finland’s West coast turn into four tantalising future scenarios – acted out by the inhabitants themselves. 

The artifacts of YKON bring an element of play to the exhibition.

MIDSUMMER with YKON is the first event of the Practical Utopias series of artistic programmes on current utopian thought and practice around the world. The aim is to map and discuss utopian practices, locate potential that will inspire collaboration across disciplines, and help to establish a system to identify, support and kick-start practical utopias within our day-to-day life. The YKON game is used as a tool for anyone wanting to practice utopian envisioning within a playful setting.

YKON are currently on a PERMACULTURES residency at The White Building supported by Bloomberg and Arts Council England, Arts Council of Finland and The Finnish Institute in London. 

How to get there
Saturday event at The White Building is 2 minutes walk from Hackney Wick Overground station (Last train: 11.38pm). Buses 236, 30, 26 and 388 

Sunday event at Electra, 5 minutes walk from Dalston Kingsland overground and 10 minutes walk from Dalston Junction overground, buses 149, 76, 67, 243, 236. 

Practical Utopias is a collaboration between YKON (Finland), Electra (UK) and Drugo More (Croatia).

thewhitebuilding.org
www.ykon.org
www.electra-productions.com
http://www.drugo-more.hr/wordpress/
http://www.finnish-institute.org.uk