The Utopia Experiment was an experiment by

Dylan Evans Dylan Evans (born August 18, 1966) is a British former academic and author who has written books on emotion and the placebo effect as well as the theories of Jacques Lacan. Life and career Early life and education Evans was born in Bristol on ...

, set up in 2006 at Netherton Farm, near Culbokie on the

Black Isle The Black Isle ( gd, an t-Eilean Dubh, ) is a peninsula within Ross and Cromarty, in the Scottish Highlands. It includes the towns of Cromarty and Fortrose, and the villages of Culbokie, Jemimaville, Rosemarkie, Avoch, Munlochy, Tore, and Nor ...

peninsula in the

Scottish highlands The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Sco ...

. It involved a group of volunteers improvising a post-apocalyptic lifestyle. It was time-limited to 18 months, and was originally intended to serve as both a

learning community A learning community is a group of people who share common academic goals and attitudes and meet semi-regularly to collaborate on classwork. Such communities have become the template for a cohort-based, interdisciplinary approach to higher educati ...

(where everyone had a skill of knowledge they could teach the others) and a working community (where everyone would contribute by working). After 10 months, Evans had become disillusioned with the project and concerned about his mental health. He went to see a doctor who referred him to a

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

. Evans was then detained under the

Mental Health Act Mental Health Act is a stock short title used for legislation relating to mental health law. List Canada * Mental Health Act (Ontario) (Ontario) India *The Mental Health Care Act, 2017 Ireland *The Mental Health Act 2001 New Zealand *The Men ...

for his own safety. After 4 weeks in a psychiatric hospital, he returned to the experiment to inform the volunteers that it was over. They, however, wanted the community to continue and renamed it the Phoenix Experiment, under which name it continued for several years. The site is now used as the Culbokie Community Garden, with individual plots for local residents. Evans detailed his experience of the community in the 2015 book '' The Utopia Experiment'' published by

Picador A ''picador'' (; pl. ''picadores'') is one of the pair of horse-mounted bullfighters in a Spanish-style bullfight that jab the bull with a lance. They perform in the ''tercio de varas'', which is the first of the three stages in a stylized bullf ...

References

{{reflist Utopian communities 2006 establishments in Scotland Black Isle