“Utopian Entrepreneur” by Brenda Laurel

Work for peace.  Speak for peace.  Tell stories for peace.  Make music for peace.  Write books and make movies and build websites for peace.  Do culture work that corrodes extremism and intolerance.  Manifest peace.

Brenda Laurel describes in this book the concept of popular culture as the language used by cultural workers to interact with popular culture itself. Popular culture is the language used to discuss different topics such as politics, religion, ethics, and action. Cultural workers do culture work when they act or create because they believe in what they’re doing, because they think it’s a good think to do. To applicate knowledge or truth means to believe in humanity, to believe that humanity has the power of shaping its own destiny. Cultural worker has a strong social responsibility having the power to change people’s mind (or at least trying to do it) in the sense of helping people asking themselves simple questions as: What is the meaning of this?  Who am I? What are the world and I becoming?

Culture work is action and design using different tools: storytelling, persuasion, technology, and economics. Cultural worker is actually an activist and an artist as Brenda Laurel defines helself. What really strikes about her book is that she describes her very personal professional experience in a professional way. She is a utopian entrepreneur because she believed in something and fought for it. She was sure that even a professinal failure wouldn’t have meant a social one. Purple Moon, the company she launched had a project dedicated to create video games for girls. Even if even the website they created was socially a great success, the company had to be shut down. But the passion Brenda and her group put in the project of investigation what kind of video games would little girls be interested in playing with made their work a social success any way. Their goal was to do something socially positive in the business world. It is true that an artist works in the art world whether a cultural worker worls in the popular world, but when the artist creates for a positive social purpose the line between artisi and cultular worker becomes almost invisible. Brenda Laurel is an artist, a designer, a cultural worker and an activist. I wonder whether I could be able to work and create in such a perspective, at least this is what I would like to.

I was surpised by receiving this book 2 days ago……still no sign of the other one, but it’s a start! I was amazed by the design of Utopian Entrepreneur, very innovative and appealing.