A great new exhibition in London’s Barbican is highlighting artistic and architectural solutions with an eye towards the utopian. The series of works on display acknowledge the challenges the world’s population faces and look to nature for possible solutions. Some of these are gentle hints, perhaps even involving some subtle humour, while others tend towards a more dramatic approach. The Barbican itself is a sort of monument to a questioning spirit in architecture and town planning (whether it stands for success or otherwise is, of course, for the visitor to decide), so it’s a particularly appropriate venue for this eye-opening show:

Radical Nature draws on ideas that have emerged out of Land Art, environmental activism, experimental architecture and utopianism. The exhibition is designed as one fantastical landscape, with each piece introducing into the gallery space a dramatic portion of nature. Work by pioneering figures such as the architectural collective Ant Farm and visionary architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, artists Joseph Beuys , Agnes Denes , Hans Haacke and Robert Smithson are shown alongside pieces by a younger generation of practitioners including Heather and Ivan Morison, R&Sie(n) , Philippe Rahm architects and Simon Starling. Radical Nature also features specially commissioned and restaged historical installations, some of which are located in the outdoor spaces around the Barbican while a satellite project by the architectural collective EXYZT is situated off site.

This satellite project is a disused site (located in Dalston, a short walk from the Barbican complex) which has been transformed into a wheatfield and functioning windmill to produce flour and, in turn, bread. Such sites are a rarity within the city limits (the only others that bear comparison might be the city’s few farms) and so makes a refreshing, not to mention thought-provoking, pit stop.

In addition to the exhibition and its satellite , the event also includes ‘Nature Lates’ on Thursday evenings, in which speakers and performers have been arranged to touch on the issues pertinent to the exhibition. The ‘Nature Bar’ is also at hand should any visionary tendencies develop into a need for liquid inspiration.

Destinations: London