Brutal Utopias (2023)
An essay on the struggle to define social utopia through architecture that traces resistance to urban renewal in the 1970s and its aftermath.
In 1968 architect Ralph Rapson was charged with designing one of the largest urban renewal projects in US history, a utopia constructed entirely of concrete. The plan faced one problem: the neighborhood they wanted to demolish was home to a counterculture with its own utopian vision. Tracing a remarkable story of resistance to urban renewal and its aftermath, Brutal Utopias uses archival material, participant interviews, and motion graphics to understand the dreams of modernity—and their violence—at the moment they were starting to crumble. It reflects on these dreams by engaging the current residents of Rapson’s brutalist buildings, the East African refugee community, as participants in the filmmaking process. In revisiting this history, Brutal Utopias grapples with questions we face today: how do we design cities and for whom?
Upcoming Screenings:
Regis Art Center, Minneapolis, October 12, 2023
Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis, March 15, 2024
National Building Museum, Washington, D.C., July 24, 2024
Northrup Auditorium, University of Minnesota, September 16, 2024
Duluth Superior Film Festival, October 6, 2024
Forever and Forever And Forever
(documentary feature in production)
A poetic investigation of the relationship between chemistry and culture as communities in Minnesota come to terms with their toxic legacy as the birthplace of forever chemicals.
