melissandre varin reflects on their recent Nest Residency

i had my third residency with Talking Birds between the 7th and 18th of March – in-between spaces.

i had access to “Odyssey” studio space at the Nest, received £1000 financial support, and found comfort (once again) in a warm hug, a half-pronounced joke, an overdue catch up and a permission to be – me.

i ended up inhabiting the studio offered to me about 4-5 days across a 2 weeks residency, i never felt like i was feeling the space as i needed to. Was i avoiding the spaces i intended to investigate with this project? i guess that this question will stay in suspension. It is only at the last moment, last day of residency that i started to connect threads, bits and pieces of me in regards to this inavouée (undisclosed) feeling.

Where i needed to be was at linoleum dreams parked on the parking of the Nest.

But – i did not feel ready, in all the complexity of what being ready to re-visit an artwork i sweated in, dreamt in, loved in – could (have) mean(t).

i felt like avoiding, and accepting the fact that i came to this residency depleted for multiple reasons that i will keep silent in typed words but could expand on if you ever see me in the detour of a street, gallery, theatre.

– depleted – it is when i am most vulnerable to external forces. i felt the pressure to produce for the first time in a while at the beginning of the residency. But – returned to myself spiritually guided by (non)living ancestors. i paused on the fact, the need to have such pockets, portals, moments to come depleted, stay depleted – feel its wind of change and its static corners – without pressure to ‘sort it/myself out’. As an artist with mood swings, chronic depression, and care responsibilities – i never paused on the thought that maybe feeling whatever i am feeling, including depleted, did not have to be a feeling, space i needed to unknot but could – be – with/in.

Without performing Black joy, without performing Black queer trauma, without performing but being and trusting the fact that what was (not) happening was ok.

i had pleasure though! Surrounded by beings i love and did not see in a while, taking time to share a cuppa, nurturing friendships learning about how/where Black queer artist friends grew up in in Dakar, Birmingham, Nairobi… working at Odyssey studio with a friend part of B.O.O.K (Building Our Own Knoweldge) working group, inspired by friend and collaborator Samiir Saunders i wrote the first version of my access rider (happy to share with anyone interested) – i got to know about myself and share it to the world.

Ok now that i am starting to list things it actually sounds like it was 2 full wholesome weeks. But i want to highlight the reality that these were interrupted with times when i had to cancel my days as i felt the need to stay still – i must admit that i spent a whole day watching Love Is Blind season 1 and 2 as well (learnt so much!)… . Also learnt a lot navigating the British Arts Show in Wolverhampton as part of a day trip investigating this aching research question: how do we create loving environments? (perspectives from Black queer artworkers who grew up on the African continent and in the EU/UK-based diaspora) –

i lived.

i am writing this post fresh out of an inspiring talk by Zed Lawal, Dan Thompson & Derek Nisbet, and chair Philippa Cross.

this residency has been transformative – quite in line with most of Talking Birds’ work. as i am ending this annotation on the residency, i would like to share my love for the being making this organisation – a warm womb i (re)turn to while excited, on a high, depleted, lost ….-

Talking Birds, and its residencies programme is an essential example of what mothering could mean when it comes to the arts sector.

More on this slow-birth-ing creature i am working on or that is working within me in due course.

here is a snippet of a tentacle of this thingy that works and mixes my within for almost a year:

i would like to have conversations with members of my chosen family (mainly (Black) queer artworkers) this time and compile the transcripts of them – both work will inform a multi-language performance and multi-sensory installation i feel the impulse to make. With this project that lives in my heart i have the desire to investigate how senses of aesthetics, of what is art and what is not – are formed and informed by the built environment/ interior design/ furniture/ type of flooring / wall-paper and so on – we grew up in? How can this inform the creation of loving environments in the arts (too)? How can we create loving environments? Dissecting these questions by looking back at our immediate roots and acknowledging the power of ‘things’ in contributing in making us who we are now – i am currently thinking of expanding my understanding of my vibrant materialist approach.

As a dear being sent me on a low a couple of months ago:
Octavia E Butler’s assertion in Parable of the Talents, “To survive let the past teach us”

These words will definitely find home on my skin through ink asap.

---

If you are a Midlands-based artist working in any medium who might benefit from a Nest Residency, you can find more details and how to apply here.

---