Hugo Hutchins

Hugo Hutchins (he/him) lives and works in London. He graduated from BA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in 2019. Recent exhibitions include: 'Proxy' at Cromwell Place (2021); ‘Onedirectionfuturism’ at The Kube Gallery (2021); ‘Behind The Glass’ at Central Saint Martins Museum & Study Collection (2021); ‘The South Bermondsey Art Trail’ at Sid Motion Gallery (2020); 'In The Withdrawing Room, Online Event’ (2020); ‘RCA WiP Show’, Royal College of Art (2020); ‘The Great Oxygenation Event’, Residency and Exhibition at Standpoint Gallery (2020); ‘Club Tropicana’, Dadapost, Berlin (2019); Tate Exchange, Tate Modern, (2017, 2018, 2019). With fellow Central Saint Martins alumni Maria Mahfooz, Hutchins co-curated and featured in ‘BABEL’, Willesden Galley, London (2019).

Hugo Hutchins has recently published his debut book ‘Onedirectionfuturism’. It navigates themes of whiteness, heteronormativity, queerness and masculinity via a projection into a dystopian future where the boyband One Direction rule the world. The content of the book shifts between academic theory, fan fictions, illustrative images and personal self-reflections from the Author.

ENDINGS

Onedirectionfuturism is a projection into the future that comes from a long term insecurity of mine. Constantly feeling that I have to measure up to the archetypes of masculinity that are perpetuated in the media and on my phone screen, this project manifested itself into a dystopian view of the future where straight white men dominate the world even more so.

To make sense of this anxiety One Direction became a model for me to project into this future and a framework for understanding masculinity, whiteness and heteronormativity. With the all-encompassing idea, like within the stereotype of a boyband, that straight white men are metaphorical clones of one another. Yet, amidst this viewpoint, within One Direction I discovered a sense of hope for the future. Grounded in queerness they were and are the resistance to these systems of oppression that offer up a more progressive idea of what it could mean to be a ‘man’.

To me, and to many others One Direction isn’t just a band, they are a refuge, a way to navigate identity, re-experience adolescence, negotiate queer awakenings and ultimately to make sense of one’s self.

Over these past two years and through my journey into One Direction I was able to navigate and journal my own discovery of identity.

As a final act of resolution with myself and to mark an ending of sorts, a closure of this chapter in my life, I decided to let go of all of my attachments to One Direction, literally and metaphorically leaving it in my past in the form of a Time Capsule.

Buried in proximity to Wembley Arena, the location where One Direction began and ended. To be opened in one hundred years, I lay to rest the resolutions of my past for what it was, accepting the present for what it is, and being hopeful towards the future for what it might be.

Leaving the blueprints towards a utopian ideal of a society where I hope the power structures of hegemony do not govern the intricacies of our lives, something I am calling Onedirectionutopianism.