Beginnings...

I have, for two years, studied utopianism.

I have read countless works of utopian literature; countless books of utopian theory. I see utopias in music, in maths, in film, in TV; in the tightly packed houses on commuter estates; and in the past, present and future of Nottingham- the city I call home. I consider my practices as an improvising musician and a critical educator to be utopian. I consider the detailed plans my 6 year old self drew up for a monorail system in my home village of Codsall, South Staffordshire to be utopian. I consider myself to be a utopian.

Yet I have never written a utopia.

* * * *

It is a cold, wet Saturday in October 2010. I am sat in a 1985 VW Camper van outside One Thoresby Street in the Sneinton area of Nottingham. As home to a number of artists' collectives, One Thoresby Street is one of the venues for Sideshow, the 'fringe' festival for the British Art Show 7. So too is the camper van. It belongs to the YH485 Press, and has been converted into a travelling library- the Bookmobile- for the duration of Sideshow. It will travel around the various venues, offering books, company and food. Each Saturday, in the car park of One Thoresby Street, it will also offer me. I am its writer in residence, charged with producing an original piece of writing across six Saturdays.

Soon, I'll have written a utopia.

* * * *

When you enter One Thoresby Street and climb the stairs on the east side, you get a fabulous view of 'The Island' at 'Eastside': a wasteland once occupied by railway warehouses and once full of 'development potential'. In the six years I have been in Nottingham it has been the subject of a number of regeneration bids. Luxury flats. Office spaces. 'A mixed use city quarter'. 'Due for completion in 2008'. They come, they go; no-one buys the t-shirt.

The Island is an intriguing space. It's full of spectres, and I'm fascinated by spectres. The ghosts from the past are there for all to see in the hulking shell of T.C. Hine's Great Northern Railway warehouse. Here, Nottingham was an important industrial power with innovative architecture. Not so much now, and The Island is also haunted by the spectres of a capitalist utopia that's never arrived- those regeneration bids whose fancy, CGI'd blueprints sporadically adorn the pages of the Evening Post and remain just a google search away from you now. If you know where to look you can see physical traces of this alternative present too: the high quality of tarmac on the roads that traverse The Island, ready for the wheels of a prospective investor's Lexus, and a tatty For Sale sign which adorns an anonymous industrial building on a road approaching the space. 'Gateway to Eastside', it proclaims, baring the name of a local property entrepreneur (and one time 'Secret Millionaire' on Channel Four) who was declared bankrupt in September 2009 with debts of £30million (his demise also spelled the end for Ilkeston Town Football Club, whose Chairman he became in May 2008, prompting the Ilkeston Advertiser to claim that there would be an 'exciting future' for the club).

But what I'm concerned with here is the ghost that's yet to come. What future haunts us when we look at this site? What kind of city do we want Nottingham to be?

To that, I must answer 'a utopian one'.

* * * *

It is, then, my intention to use my time as Bookmobile's writer in residence to create a utopia for 'The Island': colouring in its spaces with a vision of 'the good life'. True to my political convictions, this will be non-hierarchical, open to difference-in-itself, and in constant recognition of the need for further change. It will not be a blueprinted utopia claiming perfection forever, but what I call a 'nomadic utopia': remaining utopian only to the extent that it remains open to the future.

Perhaps this is not a true utopia; it is a 'so called utopia' of the kind detailed in Albert Meister's novel the so-called utopia of the centre beaubourg, a book I encourage you all to read (although it is hard to find and I do not have a copy myself. Maybe my housemate will be kind enough to lend his copy to Bookmobile); though it will certainly fulfill the utopian criteria of being a flight of fancy (impossible fancy, some might say), as necessity dictates I will gloss over some of the more tedious and difficult issues that would be presented were anyone to attempt to enact my vision. And it is certainly not to be read as a once-and-for-all pronoucement on how life should be lived: I would be rather worried if people thought that I'd come up with all the answers. It may, however, serve to remind people that our way of living isn't the only way of living, and that the futures of 'development potential realisation' and 'mixed use city quarters' aren't the only futures open to us.

David Bell- Bookmobile Writer in Residence