A collaboration between Illustration students and the English Department is on show in the Dundee Central Library. This special exhibition is a follow up to last year’s ‘Blazing Worlds! Science Fiction by Women’. It features artwork from the Michael Kirkham’s Level 2 Illustration students from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and is based on the PhD topic of English postgraduate researcher Rachel Harrison, on women’s science fiction writing, in collaboration with supervisor Keith Williams.
This word-and-image exhibition responds to the work of Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale and other speculative fictions about the future. In particular, it responds to Atwood’s notion of ‘Ustopia’ and the danger that idealistic plans for reforming human society, real or imagined, can lead to unintended consequences: ‘Ustopia is a word I made up by combining utopia and dystopia – the imagined perfect society and its opposite – because, in my view, each contains a latent version of the other.’ Margaret Atwood, ‘Dire Cartographies: The Roads to Ustopia’, In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination (London: Virago Press, 2011), pp.66-98 (66)
The exhibition is in two parts:
The first part shows artwork illustrating student responses to Atwood’s concept and her analysis of the ironic reversibility of utopian visions, fictional or historical.
The second includes the student’s own visions of ‘perfect’ utopian worlds which also contain the dangerous potential to become their dystopian opposites.
- ‘Why is it that when we grab for heaven […] we so often produce hell?’ (Atwood, p.84)
- ‘Where has utopian thinking gone? Because it never fully disappears: we’re too hopeful a species for that. “Good,” for us, may always have a “Bad” twin, but its other twin is “Better.”’ (Atwood, p.94)
It is suitable for all ages, with a particular focus on young adults or anyone interested in Science Fiction or female authors and runs until 29 February. There will also be a ‘roundtable’ discussion with students and staff about the ideas and creative processes behind the exhibition, in the Central Library Conference Room room on Monday 19 February 5:30-7:00, to which all members of the public are warmly invited. To book tickets go to
USTOPIAS: UTOPIAS, DYSTOPIAS AND MARGARET ATWOOD Tickets, Mon 19 Feb 2024 at 17:30 | Eventbrite