Magic Party Place x New Town Utopia is an exhibition of photography, video and film by artists CJ Clarke & Christopher Ian Smith. It has been exhibited at the Sharjah Biennale, Beirut, Format Photography Festival, Derby and Rich Mix, London.

Displaced and dislocated.

Terminal ideologies.

The ruins of Europe behind us.

This is a fluid drama presented in space and time.

The setting: the British new town of Basildon, a constructed community, located 25 miles east of London. The town is statistically average, socially conservative and voted overwhelmingly in favour of Brexit. Tracing the internal landscapes of it’s inhabitants, the installation maps the psychopathology of the suburb and identities a narrative of social and political dislocation.

Conceived by artists CJ Clarke & Christopher Ian Smith, MAGIC PARTY PLACE x NEW TOWN UTOPIA brings together two projects conceived concurrently but executed individually.

Through the post-industrial English landscape, the installation investigates one community’s response to the impact of neoliberal policy. A community which occupies the mainstream of society yet perceive themselves to have been pushed to the margins.