“It’s a Gift”

Michael Snodgrass reflects on his Hatching Residency

My hatching residency raised a few areas to reflect on as a visual artist; a place and a studio space to go each day and create, a time to explore techniques, a chance to talk to other people about my work (and theirs), the opportunity to discuss work as it happens, respond to people’s thoughts and receive mentoring around social media and sharing work publicly.

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Audio Experiments and Fatigue

Indira Lakshmi reflects on her Nestival Residency

It’s always a pleasure to be at the Nest!

I spent the last two weeks on June in the Helloland studio. I had been working on building midi instruments with Arduino and Pure Data for some time, having made a rudimentary teddy-bear with potentiometers that control an FM Synth I’d programmed with Pure Data.

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The animal needs more space

Rosalind Harvey reflects on her Nest Residency

Recently I have been thinking a lot about space. The literal, physical space in which to do one’s work (Virginia Woolf’s ‘Room of One’s Own’), but also the mental space you need to carve out in which to write, to think, to create. I normally work from home and am very used to doing so (I’ve been a self-employed writer-translator for almost 15 years now), but after spending more time at home than even I am comfortable with during lockdown, my relationship to working from home has shifted.

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Like a Fairy Tale

Shorna reflects on her Hatching Residency

Talking Birds is a Coventry based company of artists, known for their gently provocative projects which explore, and seek to illuminate, the profound and complex relationships between people and place.” These lines from their website says a lot about this astonishing company. I have recently completed my two weeks residency there and feel very lucky to get this opportunity. I was placed in a beautiful studio, “Helloland”. I must say the name of the studio made me so happy because I was planning to illustrate a children’s book that will have illustrations of gardens. My studio gave me a perfect start. 

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Games and Gnit

Colour to Colour Theatre Company reflect on their Remix Residency at Talking Birds

The plan: Start the R&D phase of creating a show that can be toured. Play with all the resources that The Nest have provided us, and look for texts to adapt and work from. By the end of the residency we plan to have a few scenes ready to perform. We also plan to be ready to provide workshops for students at Coventry University. 

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