Utopia in Everyday Welfare Institutions

Reflections from our network guided Ingrids and Anjas participation in the GRASP Knowledge Festival 2025 in September in Roskilde. Here, the question of utopias in everyday welfare institutions was discussed as part of a programme where researchers, practitioners, artists, and students met to explore new ways of imagining the future, to reflect on and respond to societal challenges.

We took part in the thematic tracks focused on “Utopia in Everyday Welfare Institutions.” The discussions took as their starting point the fact that welfare institutions today are under pressure: shortages of staff, increasing complexity in citizens’ needs, and a growing intensity in everyday work. At the same time, participants pointed out that many small stories of care, creativity, and innovation already emerge from the daily practices of those working within these institutions.

The debate at the festival therefore did not centre on large, abstract visions of the future, but rather on small, everyday utopias: situations in which staff, citizens, and artists together create new forms of community, care, or meaningful experiences within institutional settings.

In this context, utopia was understood as an experimental perspective that can open up alternative ways of organising relationships, work, and welfare—often through co-creation, aesthetic practices, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

The conversations at the festival made it clear that utopias in welfare institutions are not (only) about radical systemic change, but also about recognising, sharing, and developing the small practices in which care, creativity, and professional knowledge come together and momentarily transform everyday life. Or one could say that it is about compositions of care!