Ecological Interbeings - The Embassy of Utopia, 2025: Eco-Futures
- David Hartley
- Jul 23
- 8 min read
In her essay 'Bridging the Divide', which was performed at this year's Embassy of Utopia, Maarja Pärtna suggests that poetic imagery 'performs ecological interbeing by becoming a living expression of relational life'. She's reminding us that a key function of poetry is to connect us, often playfully and unexpectedly, into a shared existence with non-human things. Poetry makes possible and tangible the impossible and the intangible, and in an era of encroaching eco-disaster, we need those (im)possibilities now more than ever. We're finding it too difficult to encounter ecological change on an individual level, and its increasingly frustrating to do the same on a collective level when fear and uncertainty seem to continually override good sense. The poetic, as Maarja says, must now stand tall as a powerful method to 'arrive at the truth indirectly' by revealing and highlighting the deep reality of our interconnected existence with plants, animals, the weather, the ground, the sky, the water and, ultimately, each other.
Back in June, we re-opened the stage for The Embassy of Utopia at the Festival of Libraries with a theme of 'eco-futures'. Maarja was just one of over sixty performers who graced the stage that day, and poetry was in abundance in all its forms. We had plenty of traditional poetry from the quiet to the performative, but we also witnessed storytelling, music, dance, painting, calligraphy, fashion, essays and activism, all bathed in the streaming sunlight pouring in from the windows of the Manchester Central Library performance space. We were also enriched by a polyphony of languages beyond English including Urdu, French, Hindi, Mandarin, Estonian, and German. The utopian invitation of our borderless embassy made space for the possibilities and impossibilities of this linguistic interbeing, and what emerged in those moments was a collective appreciation of (mis)communication. Those (like myself) not versed in the non-English languages had to listen instead to cadence, tone, pitch, rhythm and foreign syntax, all while watching the speaker perform within the exquisite comforts of their native tongue. Following Maarja's thoughts, I can also see these moments as explorations of ecological interbeing; many of us had to learn to exist, for a few minutes, outside the comforts of our own knowledge and sense. We had to look and listen in different ways, and perhaps we felt the reaching roots and branches of other worlds and other viewpoints. This is something that strikes me as extra important in Britain. We too often sit too comfortably within the apparent universality of English as a language, flinching with suspicion and embarrassment at the sound of a different tongue. Utopia is not achieved through universality, much like forests are not achieved through monoculture.
This is something of what we reach for with The Embassy of Utopia; a hopeful multitude, a rich extent, a wide scope, a variety show. Surprise, delight and the tantalising glimpses of possibility. A lot is said on our stage about the difficulty of ever achieving or even believing in Utopia, and it's a sentiment that can agonise and antagonise, and is never not true. One of our other performers, Joely May Greally, reminded us that in Greek 'Utopia' means 'no place', so perhaps there was never any intention to find or create such a realm from the beginning. Perhaps utopia, in the bleakest sense, is death; the eternal nothing, the ultimate no-place. But flip this and think differently; utopia is the progression towards death, and so is life, and is life lived at its best when it is spiced by variety, whatever that may mean for each individual and each community. What then gets performed at our 'Embassy' - this imaginary structure of walls, columns, statuary, and ambient lighting - is the poetry of life and longing. It is the 'show & tell' of where we're at and what we need, and by showcasing as much as possible across as many mediums, languages, ages, and cultures, we can collectively yearn for what we all need; the confidence and skill to be true 'ecological interbeings'. The performances at The Embassy of Utopia give me hope and heart. We're not there yet, not by a long shot, but we're progressing. Despite what might otherwise be said.
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As with last year, there were so many highlights on the Embassy stage that I won't be able to list them all. But here are a few personal stand-out moments.
It was a great pleasure to see a recent student of mine take to the stage. Tallula Rose-Quinton offered us an earthy and fungal double poem called 'Utopia of Fingers and Flesh' which took pleasure and potential from the mundane and the trash: Their fruit sprouts from shattered shop windows / limbs extending down the front to meet the earth. / Pigeons on the earth look up to the gills - / lungs like umbrellas and coo.
We had two representatives from Quebec City of Literature. Comic artist Francis Desharnais opened proceedings by boldly and bravely stating that there was an elephant in the room: this is an event about ecofutures, he says, and we all commit eco indiscretions all the time. He used his own transatlantic flight as a case in point, and then proceeded to draw that elephant to a silent and enthralled room. The creature stayed with us throughout the rest of the show:
Vanessa Bell holds a very special place at the heart of the Manchester iteration of The Embassy of Utopia, as it was her absence last year that allowed funds to be shifted around to make the event happen. She's also become a great creative friend of mine after we spent a lot of magnificent time together in Sweden during our Vastra Gotaland residencies. Vanessa was there from hour zero to the final closing moments; an anchor for me as I sailed the choppy seas of event management. She spoke in French, an essay about love, longing, and cold waters, and I offer a fragment of it here in the same language for you to take and translate at your own leisure, if you wish: Vivre sous l’eau veut dire amour. La conviction en mes mots fait avancer mon torse par à-coup vers l’étendue qui semble sans fin. Bientôt, je passerai de nouveau la tête sous l’eau, déchiffrerai ce que l’océan tente de me dire. J’apprendrai son langage.
Salford ambient musician Rickerly made an appearance, one which was perfectly timed and exquisitely pitched. Barefoot and magnificently masked, he strode on like an imp from a forest of white trees before handing out bouquets of dried flowers and playing a melancholy remix of an ancient Strokes song. I reiterate my assertion that this lad is the most persistently reliable and surprising performer in the whole of Greater Manchester, and everyone needs to bear witness.
I was almost overwhelmed with joy, pride and affection for Tartu poet Johanna Roos, who made her UK debut on our stage. Johanna played a pivotal role in documenting my show in Tartu last year, The Forest of Ink & Skin, and we became firm friends, so it was an enormous pleasure to witness her fierce feminist poetry of menstruation and embodiment, Tsukkel, which she performed in both English and Estonian. Her power was raw, her presence unmatched, and her performance grabbed time by the throat and wouldn't let go:
As with last year, our stage was graced by a number of community groups from the local area and this year it was a delight to welcome a group from Sonder Radio. Rather wonderfully, the station themselves came and captured the audio so you can listen to the hour of recordings here as a podcast. It was a mixture of storytellers and poets, all of whom were completely wonderful, but I'd like to give a special mention to Marlies Reisch-Gallagher and Yuan Megson. The former presented an essay about her influential music teacher, concluding with a spellbinding recorder performance, and the latter read a love poem to a Chinese fan before performing an actual fan dance. It's these kinds of wonderful surprises that are the lifeblood of The Embassy of Utopia as an event:
Not long after Sonder, another radio group took to the stage: Dragon's Voice CIC, who broadcast with All FM. This group explore and celebrate Chinese culture, and for the Embassy they took up the easel and offered up some live calligraphy and Chinese painting using traditional methods. It was mesmerising to see the ink stroke and bleed across the page in real time to create the absolutely beautiful images. Many thanks to Cathy Burke, Jolene Lam and Can Ho for this presentation:
As with last year, our Embassy was decorated by the work of the students of Pendleton College in Salford who this year responded to themes set by our Nanjing City of Literature partners and guests. Part of the presentation included a fashion show in which the fashion students paraded their creations across the stage. Just like last time, it was an showcase of exquisite craft, design and imagery across a wild range of styles and concepts. Once again, it was such a joy to have an explosion of fashion and music and youth in the middle of proceedings. The Embassy is all the richer for the presence of Pendleton:
I need to give a particular shout-out to Jo Flynn and Hawwa Alam, two of my key collaborators on The Embassy who work tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure everything runs as smoothly and as elegantly as possible. Hawwa in particular has been a total god-send for me; this year she practically put the whole line-up together and made sure everyone knew when to arrive and what to do when they got here. Both Jo and Hawwa took to the stage late in the afternoon to perform their poetry. Jo's deeply moving letters to her son reflected on how parental love is bound inextricably with climate anxiety, while Hawwa perched on the edge of the stage and spoke of the current loves, losses, and longings of Gaza. The pair of them were pure perfection and I cherish their contributions forever, both on and off stage:
Finally, we rounded off The Embassy of Utopia this year with a special headline performance by a pair (perhaps trio?) of musicians who very much encapsulate the idea of 'Ecological Interbeings'. Bionic and the Wires are an extraordinary act. Sensors are attached to a house-plant (and in other iterations to trees and mushrooms) and the electrical signals activate various mechanical arms which strike keys on keyboards and pads of drum machines. The resulting sounds are released by Jon and then interwoven with the ambient music being played live by Andy. It's a hypnotic and alluring encounter; a fascinating way of jury-rigging nature to create a visual and audio representation of the vibrant inner life of plants. During the performance, I collaborated by offering up a few poetic thoughts on some plants I've been growing recently in my garden (namely, sunflower, mint, basil, fern, and onion) before handing out cuttings to audience members. We were, in those closing moments of our utopian Embassy, a 'living expression of relational life' as we looked upon the wired-up houseplant and contemplated it's mood, it's creativity, it's status as a rock-and-roll frontman, and how we, the ridiculous humans, will take to the same stage and pour out our own electrical signals for the benefit of the poetic and the performative. Maybe we'll do it all again next year?
p.s. I've heard along the wires that The Embassy of Utopia will soon cross the Atlantic and find itself in Quebec City. Watch this space for more. Bon voyage, EoU!
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