Sam HH reflects on her Nest Residency
The Nest Residency gave me so much more than I had ever imagined it could. So this is not just about what I did but what I gained. Not just creatively but personally. I had never been given space like this before. It felt greedy. Privileged. It felt overwhelmingly scary. I felt guilt – taking up space when it could have been used for someone else. Especially as I felt like I was maybe tricky.
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Luisa Freitas reflects on her Talking Birds Hatching Residency
For my Hatching residency with Talking Birds I wanted to explore the best methods to approach and talk about the topic of Trichotillomania and the overall Body Focused Repetitive Behaviour Disorders. As someone who struggles with the Trichotillomania condition (hair pulling disorder) and only recently learned about it due to my own research, I wanted to educate the audience on it so that people are better informed and equipped to deal with it. With special focus in reaching out to those who have the same issue but feel lost and don’t know what is happening to them, or who to go to to learn about it.
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This post details a draft action plan entitled ‘Creating the Conditions for Creation’ which has its genesis in a F13 (network of independent and small scale arts organisations, freelance artists and creative practitioners) workshop. This workshop asked the question: “Where do we want to be in five years time?” – as a way of talking about, and moving collectively forwards from, the collapse of Coventry City of Culture Trust.
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On 3rd July 2023 a seminar was hosted at Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, entitled Co-making Futures: How Do Universities and Cultural Organisations Create Equitable Cities? The event was organised by ArtSpaceCity, a research group based in the Centre for Postdigital Cultures at Coventry University, a group which hosts “projects that explore how publicly funded cultural institutions can contribute to the making of more democratic cities”.
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It’s been a rocky five years for many of us. It’s definitely been a rocky five years for the arts. And if you are an artist based in Coventry, it’s been a right rocky rollercoaster of a five – well actually probably more like ten – years.
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Guest blog from the Creative Accounting research team, reflecting on their recent collaboration with Talking Birds
On 18 May 2023, an unusual event took place at the recently restored Draper’s Hall, a historic building on Bayley Lane in the Cathedral Quarter of Coventry, built in 1832. Eleven professional accountants gathered for a business-style dinner with canapes, drinks and a three-course meal. However, the aim of the event was not to engage in normal accounting business and networking, in fact quite the opposite.
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Jake Barrowcliffe reflects on his Hatching residency
As part of my residency at The Nest, I was required to write a blog post. For some reason, I decided that what I would do instead was write about my experiences as they happened. This has taken the form of a journal of sorts. Now, I will warn you immediately, I have never kept a diary before. I often find my day to day life so utterly boring that the idea of reliving the moment-by-moment banality while writing it down and then by reading it back years later is like a Kafka-esque nightmare to me. However, this details something unusual and out of the ordinary. I do hope, dear reader, that you find some use in what follows or, at least, some entertainment.
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Tom Godwin reflects on his Hatching Nest Residency
My hatching residency revolved around an old photograph I found amongst some of my grandad’s possessions of Coventry City centre taken around the ’60s. I was immediately fascinated with the differences to the present day and the idea of changing landscapes and our role in shaping these changes as well as my own personal connection to the landscapes around me. My initial plan was to go into this residency with just this picture and an open mind to take this project in any direction it took me.
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Let us accept, for a moment, that the idea of a title like City of Culture, that passes from city to city and gives permission for the title-holder to freely play and experiment – to find out what it can achieve through a concentrated period of arts and cultural activity – is a good one.
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Notes taken at the Meeting of the Finance and Corporate Services Scrutiny Board of Coventry City Council – March 29th 2023 for circulation to F13 and other artists in the city. Please note that these are not the official minutes – those will become available via the City Council’s website in due course.
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Losing the City of Culture legacy programme feels like a bereavement, but what the sector is mourning is not the Trust, but the glittering story of a city lifted up and made forever better by arts, culture and creativity. Not because this story didn’t happen, but because it is currently overshadowed and in danger of being drowned out by the story of the failure of the City of Culture Trust.
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Sarah Owen reflects on their second residency at the Nest
One of the last things I said before I finished my second residency at the Nest back in July 2022 was a tongue-in-cheek promise that it wouldn’t take me three months to write my blog about my experience, after I did exactly that last time. In my defence, I didn’t lie. However, taking eight months to write it instead was not exactly my intention. But! Better late than never, and I think I can (and I will) argue that it’s sort of appropriate for a person who spent their Nest residency working on a stage musical about time to also be consistently dogged by time as a concept.
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Words from the Birds 