Intertale/Eutopia

InterTale/Eutopia is a travelling research project to investigate curatorial/organisational practice of rural arts initiatives across Europe. With an InterRail ticket in my hand, in summer 2024 I have been criss-crossing the continent to visit a wide range of rural creative set ups. By connecting and reconnecting with existing and future partners and networks I aim to discuss, test and refine a series of proposed questions that stem from my transformational fieldwork research, that comes from my work with Deveron Projects/the town is the venue.

My spiritual friend and mentor Patrick Geddes, specially reincarnated through crochet accompanied me along the journey.

Intertale relates to the stories and talks to discover while travelling from place to place on the train. Eutopia, a much-used Geddesian term, means a place that is perfectly happy. The word comes from the Greek εὖ ("good" or "well") and τόπος ("place"), meaning a place of ideal well-being. While Utopia is an impossible concept, Eutopia is a more realistic idea of a good place or something that is attainable, where people must put aside their personal interests for the good of the larger group.

During the first part of my journey, I travelled over two months to Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Romania, Italy, France and Catalunya. The more northern countries will be visited next spring during phase 2 of my research.

Aim is to produce a well-researched toolkit that can be applied and adopted by a range of practitioners in rural/periphery settings. Based on Geddesian principles it will form the base for an international conference and a new handbook publication. A co-designed tablecloth based on the Place/Work/Folk principle is greatly assisting with this, alongside a set of cards designed by Yunior Aguiar that are based on 16 principles of rural arts development derived from my auto-ethnographic phd research on my work with Deveron Projects. Workshops, walkshops and talks took place alongside simply looking and listening at different models of arts development in their specific rural settings.

Supported by Creative Scotland. Shadow Curator: Charles Esche

Intertale/Eutopia Stops:

Stop 1: Zeitgarten/Pfyn/Switzerland

Stop 2: Broumov/Czechia

Stop 3: InSitu/Sokołowsko/Silesia/Poland

Stop 4: Studio Wilhelm Scherübl/Radstadt/Austria

Stop 5: Kunstbühel/Kitzbühel/Tirol/Austria

Stop 6: Wattens/Tirol/Austria

Stop 7: FÖN Festival/Wörgl/Tirol/Austria

Stop 8: Schmiede/Hallein/Austria

Stop 9: Künstlerstadt Gmünd

Stop 10: InContextArt/Slǎnic Moldova/Romania