Next year’s Cultural Olympiad could feature an installation inspired by the works of an Eighteenth century Utopian Socialist, currently on show at a Manchester’s gallery.

‘Ode to Charles Fourier, Towards a Phalanstery for Manchester’ by Nils Norman has been commissioned by the Cube Gallery, on Portland Street.

The main exhibit is a ‘walk and crawl-through climbable sculpture’. It is a work- station divided into three key areas – safe play, standard play and risky play. It includes a trampoline, a tunnel and a mushroom log.

Jane Anderson has been the Creative Director of Cube for five years. She says: “We’ve been interested in working with Nils Norman for a long time. This is the end of a two year conversation with him.”

She explains that the aim is to adapt and make the sculpture safe and for outdoor use in Manchester city centre.

The theme of the North West’s contribution to the Cultural Olympiad is ‘We Play’. The exhibit has proved very popular with children. Fourier is likely to have been pleased by this as he believed children were naturally industrious.

A by-product of this month’s Manchester International Festival, Jane says, is a boost in families visiting the gallery.

Nils Norman’s exhibition also includes a grid or timetable which might be suitable for a community occupying one of the Phalanstries which Fourier envisioned.

The grid subdivides the day into a number of activities such as fruit growing, apple picking, water filtration, play design and brainstorming. Participants would rise at 3.30am and go to bed at 10.30pm.

Professor Andrew Vincent is the author of Modern Political Ideologies (Blackwell-Wiley 2009). He explains that Fourier, born in 1772, believed in a society where work would become an aesthetic and sensual pleasure. No roles or tasks would be fixed and production would be for basic well-made goods to satisfy human needs.