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Isola Utopia in Casale Monferrato. 16-18 October 2015. Castello di Casale Monferrato.  Parabola Utopia. Project presentation and public encounter in collaboration with the City of Casale Monferrato and the Councillor for Tourism and Manifestations Daria Carmi. Contributions by Alessandro Azzoni, Barbara Barberis, Emanuel Balbinot, Angelo Castucci, Antonio Cipriani, Corrado Foffi, Edna Gee, Daniella Isamit Morales, Isabell Lorey, Giuliano Manselli, Tomasso Megale, Valentina Montisci, Nikolay Oleynikov, Edith Poirier, Gerald Raunig, Mariette Schiltz, Mirko Smerdel, Bert Theis, Camilla Topuntoli, and others including Daria Carmi. The term “parabola” as taken from Greek and Latin means comparison, similarity, and a way to clarify a difficult idea by comparing it to a clearer one. Parabola Utopia is an unprecedented stage of Isola Utopia, project of artistic and theoretical research led by Isola Art Center since August 2014. Isola Art Center is a platform of contemporary art based in the neighborhood Isola in Milan. Isola Utopia explores the concept of Utopia in contemporary society – after the failure of so many utopias in the past or their transformations into dystopias – taking into account the co-existence of Marxist, feminist and ecologist utopias today. The project does not pretend develop a new “grand narrative” of utopia, but collects and presents fragments and moments created by various theorists and artists in the various stages of its delivery: in the small town San Mauro Cilento, Survival Kit-Utopian City in Riga, Latvia, during Utopian Pulse in the Vienna Secession, and in a more articulated way in the project of the self-organized community garden Isola Pepe Verde in Milan, as well as the occupied and self-managed factory Rimaflow in Milan. The project Isola Utopia involves artists, activists, and Italian and international researchers. At each stage new authors add reflections and productions. This way it gives form to a diverse collection of materials for new concrete utopias. In Casale Monferrato, among the other researches, we will dedicate special attention to the local architecture of the Paraboloid, so to the theme of utopian architecture and the utopia of flight in collaboration with the local flying club. Research and output of this experience, in the form of text and art produced by project participants, will be presented at the final public encounter on Sunday afternoon. We look forward to a productive exchange. Contributions by Alessandro Azzoni, Emanuel Balbinot, Daria Carmi, Antonio Cipriani, Angelo Castucci, Corrado Foffi, Edna Gee, Isabell Lorey, Giuliano Manselli, Tommaso Megale, Valentina Montisci, Isamit Morales, Nikolay Oleynikov, Edith Poirier, Gerald Raunig, Mariette Schiltz, Chiara Scolari, Mirko Smerdel, Bert Theis, Camilla Topuntoli, and others. ‘Only in us does this light still burn, and we are beginning a fantastic journey toward it, toward the implementation of the central concept of utopia. To find it, to find the right thing, for which it is worthy to live, to be organized, and to have time: that is why we go, why we cut new, metaphysically constitutive paths, summon what is not, build into the blue, and build ourselves into the blue, and there seek the true, the real, where the merely factual disappears – incipit vita nova.’         
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