Utopia: An ideal place or state.

What would a “Brooklyn Utopia” look like?

What is the role of artists in shaping an ideal Brooklyn?



Artists are increasingly incorporating farming, landscaping, and ecology into their practice. The predominance of environmentally concerned exhibitions at contemporary art institutions is one mark of the shift of environmentalism from a marginalized grassroots and activist effort to a more institutionalized and popularized subject that infiltrates every sector of society.



How can the real or imagined Farm City catalyze new visions for social and environmental change that may bring about a “Brooklyn Utopia?” How successful are Brooklyn’s existing urban farming attempts and what additional innovations and collaborations are possible? How can the borough’s rich agrarian past inform its greener future? What about questions of scale, universal access, diversity and feasibility for urban farming that determine if this is a fad or a lasting practice in Brooklyn?

​

To address such questions, the artworks in Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City will range from the symbolic and visionary to the literally alive and dirty. Brooklyn Utopias put its down roots at the Old Stone House. The Old Stone House of Brooklyn is a modern reconstruction of the Vechte-Cortelyou House, a 1699 Dutch stone farmhouse that was the site of the largest battle of the Revolutionary War and the original home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Old Stone House is dedicated to creating a strong sense of community through history, environmental education and the arts.