The Utopia Workshop Ltd
Adult Community Education and Arts
directed by Robin Sivapalan, an adult education organiser based in London
Sous les feux d'artifice:
the clair-obscur of Europe's lost library, gathering
"One of the most wicked destructive forces, psychologically speaking, is unused creative power. If someone has a creative gift and out of laziness, or for some other reason, doesn't use it, the psychic energy turns to sheer poison. That's why we often diagnose neuroses and psychotic diseases as not-lived higher possibilities." - Marie-Louise von Franz
The Utopia Workshop's 2027 programme is for educators / leaders in any field, living in Kingsbury and the surrounding areas of northwest London.
March - October 2027
£420 minimum fee
The focus is on Groupwork: in literature, philosophy, history, psychoanalysis, theatre & education, with a special focus on France.
The programme involves 6 months intense exploratory reading and discussion, where you'll work with three curated reading lists, concurrenty, in self-faciliated groups. The final 2 months are dedicated to collectively producing a play, accompanied by public educational workshops.
It's an affordable way for educators to belong & contribute to an advanced dialogic learning community in the humanities, in their locality, to support their passion. It calls for a serious commitment, over 8 months, to be able to engage with the programme adequately; sustaining an intrinsic motivation to study and maintaining an active stake in the processes of collective learning:
- around 2-3 hours reading each day, at least;
- attending a meeting once a week, with one of your 3 study groups, in rotation; planning your reading schedule to maximise your input;
- stepping up to co-plan and facilitate meetings, to scribe; reflecting on the purposes of meeting; adapting the planned content and the way meetings are run it in light of what would work better.
The Library: It's yet to be decided how access to the book collection will be managed - whether to hire a space as a shared reading room, and which books can be lent out. I've sourced books that are hard to access and costly to replace. Book theft is a real temptation as we all know!
The Meetings: The discussion groups will probably be held in pubs or cafes; what we'd lose in control over the environment & in focus, we'd gain in connection with the wider world.
Warning: The programme will only run if 36 people are ready to enrol by the end of October 2026. This would create
- 3 groups of 12 people to run 3 courses from section 1 (of the 6)
- 4 groups of 9 people to run four courses from section 2 (of the 8)
- and again, 3 groups of 12 people to run 3 courses from section 3 (of the 6)
The recruitment thresholds are then 48, 60, with an ideal maximum of 72 people, at which point all 20 courses can run. Below that number, we'll have to reach agreement on which courses to select.
Totally anticipated objections: How are people expected to have the time, the money - especially the time? If there's no qualification at the end of it, then... ? What makes you believe you're (I'm) qualified to run this and decide on a curriculum and expect to be paid for it?
All valid - I hope you can answer them.
So now take a look at the progamme of courses and the accompanying reading lists.
My descriptive outlines were written in a flurry over a week or so. The reading lists speak just as well for themselves.
It'll be clear that each list presents different possible ways of reading, individually and collaboratively. Imagine also what it would be like for each of you to be reading from one list in each of the three sections, concurrently, over 6 months, in three different combinations of people, as part of a collective endeavour. After all, there's only so much reading one person can reasonably hope to do, so it'd be good to at least be able to associate with others who've got the other books covered.
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adult education for another world
Contact us
E-mail: robin@theutopiaworkshop.co.uk