The 2018 strike undertaken by academics working in the UK was the largest called in University and College Union history, lasting for fourteen days over 4 weeks, with 88% of members voting for strike action across 64 universities.[1] This article explores how the campus at the University of Sussex during the time of this strike became a strange, conflicted and transformative space; both a heterotopia and a site for a critical utopian process, where norms can be bent and broken, where people can function outside of the normal rules and disciplinary technologies of contemporary academia.[2] The picket lines were supplemented by strike supporting events, teach-ins, teach-outs, occupations, marches, workshops and socials; linking it with debates on the public university, decolonizing the curriculum. The strike action reached beyond the pensions debate and demonstrated radical utopian potential. [1] “UCU Announces 14 Strike Dates at 61 Universities in Pensions Row.” [2] Foucault, “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias, ‘Des Espace Autres.’” 2