Disabled Utopias

DISABLED UTOPIAS: → CRIP RE-FUTURES?

Overview:
• Define and dismantle the idea you have to be academic to explore crip theory
• Understanding what is meant by dys/utopia (as an impossible contradiction/implosion/mirror etc).
• Give examples within different mediums inc non human utopias
• Combining the two and exploring what a disabled utopia could be

What is crip theory:

Crip theory is an ideology powered by the disabled experience opening a way to view a context with an explicitly intersectional perspective centring disability. “to resist the contemporary spectacle of able-bodied heteronormativity”

“If a culture of normalization reduces disability to lack or loss and positions disability as always in need of cure, disability studies challenges the singularity of this medical model...

Crip theory affirms lived, embodied experiences of disability and the knowledges (or cripistemologies) that emerge from such experiences; at the same time, it is critical of the ways in which certain identities materialize and become representative to the exclusion of others that may not fit neatly within dominant vocabularies of disability. Many works in crip theory focus on the supposed margins of disability identification as well as on the intersections where gender, race, sexuality, and disability come together.

Crip theory, additionally, offers an analytic that can be used for thinking about contexts or historical periods that do not seem on the surface to be about disability at all.” - Robert McRuer, Emma Cassabaum

In short, it is the disabled lens. It is our knowledge as power and our
experience as intellect “Cripping” as a verb, is a mode or action we can perform when applying crip theory.

Rotten Crip Collective are a non-hierarchical artist collective and facilitators currently based in London. This is an overview for a workshop titled ‘Disabled Utopias’ and aims to be part of making this workshop accessible remotely.

* There are no expectations of outcome to be met, this is anti-academic, non-linear. Please get in touch if you would like to host this workshop or if you have any work you'd like to send in from it

This workshop was held on the 6th of October 2025 at the Piehouse Coop for a group of 25
Photography by Indianna McGrath-Clarke
Workshop overview and outomes doccumented by RCC

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ outcomes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When looking at imagined realities (sci-fi), the worlds built tend to fit
somewhere on the scale of:

an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or
injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.

←—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------→

an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect

How are these worlds represented?

Themes typically explored within these narratives include: (over/under) consumption, environmental imbalance and internal/external powers. Dys/utopian settings are not limited to centring people to explore our realities, such as the non-human utopia within Nausicaä: Valley Of The Wind, a world born post nuclear disaster (dystopian) where plant and animal life create new harmonies (utopian).

Nausicaä Poster art by Raf Banzuela

Building from ‘What if?” situations, Scifi is rarely about genuine desires for the future but more a look into the extension of the present - this is why much of scifi becomes dated so quickly (and also why so much of what is considered to be the aesthetics of scifi centres the white, able, hetronormative middle class).

It is a reflection of the context which it was made in:

1960s -> The space race, nuclear family
1980s -> Rise of AI, robots, future of humanity
2010s -> Global distaster, population control,

Shows like ‘Doctor Who’ or ‘Star Trek’ are able to record these changes of a “radical future” across real time- we see the same character, the doctor for example, re-imagined each decade.

But unsurprisingly, one man's utopia is another’s dystopia. The two ideals are unable to exist without the other like two mirrors, a coin, black hole etc ect ect.

So what about our context?

Traditionally, what is imagined as a Utopia (and dystopia) will be UNDENIABLY linked to our reality and what our society considers “perfection” to be. What “desirable” is, what “success” is, what “care” is. Seemingly (e-)Utopias are rarely found without eugenics.

As disabled people, we are rarely part of this narrative.

“Often, when people consider a utopia, they think of a world where science has erased disability. We are already seeing that now”...”Like any society, if a utopian world wants to reform and change society for the best, how that society treats those who cannot contribute physically, or economically – how it treats its most vulnerable – is a central part of the ideal. If you can’t look after those who may require support, it’s hard to call yourself utopian, after all.“

How do we build from this?

What can you build from?

What is your/our disabled utopia?

Note: We have collected various extracts and sources that vary in tone and subject. There are both dystopian and utopian sources as something to reference or remodel. We are not advocating for all of these stories as ‘good’ examples but more a material to work from.

Prompts to help you start making:
(CRIPTOPIA / DISABLED UTOPIA / RE-FUTURES)

Visually: ‘Re Building’ (Collage / illustration - can be literal or not)
Verbally: ‘Re writing’ (reorder or block/redact out segments to ‘re write’)

Set your scale! e.g:
• Map an overview of your criptopia
• Create a list of key features of your criptopia
• How would you apply crip theory to a known scifi world
• Explore a feature that interests you → what is the environment, what does it sound like, are there people → if so who? If not then, what?

((IMAGE SOURCE: Lo Cleary, ‘The Wallowlands’))