Ecologies of Utopian Desire
Miguel Brieva in Conversation with Julia Ramírez-Blanco and Alberto Berzosa
Free, until full capacity is reached
![Miguel Brieva, illustration from the children’s novel Manuela y los Cakirukos (Reservoir Books, 2022) [left] and Cibeles no conduzcas, 2023 [right]. Courtesy of the artist](https://static4.museoreinasofia.es/sites/default/files/styles/ficha_actividad_exposicion/public/actividades/ecologias_del_deseo_utopico.jpg?itok=CTJCVtNL "Miguel Brieva, illustration from the children’s novel Manuela y los Cakirukos (Reservoir Books, 2022) [left] and Cibeles no conduzcas, 2023 [right]. Courtesy of the artist")
Ecologies of Utopian Desire, held inside the framework of the Critical Ecologies Seminar from Connective Tissue, the Museo Reina Sofía’s Study Programme, welcomes draughtsman and writer Miguel Brieva, who, across his career, has created a realm from which to imagine ecologically desirable worlds. Brieva is joined by researchers Julia Ramírez-Blanco and Alberto Berzosa to reflect, in conversation, on how to dream of better worlds, with an awareness of the political agency of these dreams and their viability and ideology.
The Critical Ecologies Seminar addresses the need to recognise the central position of environmental issues to understand our era and aims to foster a debate which allows us to intervene in the present while also taking up a historical perspective. Therefore, it establishes links between colonialism, authoritarianism and fossil fuels within the context of the techno-political development of modern states and global capital.
Framed in this context, the conversation aligns with the session the Seminar devotes to “eco-topias” and is set forth as a reflection on utopia as an “education of desire”, in the words of philosopher and lecturer Miguel Abensour. From this point of departure, the activity aims to think about the characteristics and implications of our collective desire and to discuss the necessary libidinal eco-social transition.
Participants
Miguel Brieva is a draughtsman, writer and music lover. He has focused his work on social cri-tique, politics and the anthropology of capitalism and its human and eco-systemic unsustaina-bility. The revision of myths and dogmas afflicting modern society has been a constant in his work since his early self-published publications, for instance the magazine Dinero (2002). He has contributed to publications and media outlets such as El Jueves, El País, Rolling Stone and Mondo Brutto, and is the author of Memorias de la Tierra (Random House España, 2012), Manuela y los Cakirukos (Reservoir Books, 2022), Se busca un futuro posible en el que desear vivir (Astiberri, 2023) and, in collaboration with other authors, La odisea Ilustrada (Malpaso, 2019) and Eco-topías (Astiberri, 2024). He is a member of Libros en Acción and the music group Las buenas noches.
Julia Ramírez-Blanco mobilises the Critical Ecologies Seminar from Connective Tissue, the Museo Reina Sofía’s Study Programme.
Alberto Berzosa mobilises the Critical Ecologies Seminar from Connective Tissue, the Museo Reina Sofía’s Study Programme.
