X-Utopia project is an interdisciplinary international team of experts: artists, architects, urbanists, anthropologists and others, combining global views with local voices. It is dedicated to exploring the processes of peripheries, such as healing and transformation. The project aims to be episodic. Its subsequent chapters will be focused on various regions around the world. X can be visualized by any spot on a map: we all have an X, a place we love and care about. Through its poetics and cultural spirit, we return to memories and dreams.

X1 is the first chapter dedicated to the area of Eastern Slovakia and its adjacent countryside. As an area with relatively new borders, it is a crossroad of languages, histories and ideologies, therefore the perfect place for exploring the expressions of identities. It also faces a multitude of challenges: for instance continuous population loss, socio-economic and ecological aftermaths of the communist regime, becoming a spot attractive to international corporations, and concerns posed by climate change. Naturally, many questions arise about the unfoldings of these issues. What kind of futures can be built here and who are these futures actually for?
The aim of this project is to create experimental designs for parallel futures. We do not wish to design yet another utopia: i.e. the “ideal future”, but rather encourage our contributors to think about the meanings of utopia in this specific context through various possible forms. The vision of the project is to transcend the rural/urban and global/local divides and evaluate the socio-cultural and environmental implications of technological and agricultural development (and stagnation) as well as the use of AI and innovation. We wish to open a constructive discussion on the future of the countryside and the periphery: a future that we both imagine and become.