Joshua Duttweiler: Utopia Sounds Like a Good Idea

From K Space Contemporary:

“In 1966, the City of Corpus Christi received a commissioned report from Trinity Testing Laboratories that proposed an off-shore highway and a series of man-made islands along the Corpus Christi Bay. The concept development aimed to create new spaces for recreation, residency, and tourism. Looking out into the bay, today, it’s hard to imagine this alternate future–a utopian vision of Corpus Christi as a highway-tourism-paradise. The project never developed beyond the proposal phase, and the concept maps and renderings became artifacts that represent yet another attempt to improve the city’s infrastructure.

In the shadow of one of the largest U.S. bridge projects, now the city’s identity shifts once more. Its coastal community, in a limbo between pride for the land’s beauty and the impact of industrial development projects on the bay’s ecology, is on a radical precipice of economic and environmental realities. The increasing petrochemical production along with population migration trends to warmer climates are pushing our fragile ecosystem past the tipping point.

Utopia Sounds Like a Good Idea, encourages viewers to follow a path through the gallery–reminiscent of the proposed 1966 highway route–and stop at each piece [island] and consider how top-down government and industry decisions made in the past create potential futures of this region. Whether through the building of bridges or walls, ask yourself, who’s utopia are we constructing? Who’s dystopia? Who do we tie the stories of disenfranchisement, dislocation and dissolution to? What future are we endorsing with our actions or lack thereof?

Consider what opportunities exist to shape our communities, protect beauty, and foster dreams for ourselves, our community, and our future generations.”