citizens making something happen

| vornster

It takes courage to step up and organise something to make life in your neighbourhood or city better. Even when it’s part of your job it takes courage: What if no-one turns up? What if it rains? What if people don’t like what we’re doing? What if doing this makes us look stupid? What if we fail? These (and many other) questions plague us (and every artist) every time we/they do something. When you have raised funding to make your event happen, the pressure is even more intense – this is public money and there’s a big responsibility to make sure it is spent well.

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A Solid Blue Portal

| Charlie

Jaz Morrison reflects on her Nest Residency in association with MAIA

I haven’t been on many residencies, so I wasn’t sure what to expect during my time at the Nest. I remember asking if Talking Birds had any expectations of me, despite reading that this was about using the time as I felt best. The commute was surprisingly long – around 90 minutes from door to door – but it allowed me time to read books I’d put off, and the walk from the station familiarised me with the city centre. I even ran into an old colleague in my final week.

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In search of magical capabilites

| vornster

This spring Talking Birds has been working with colleagues at the University of Warwick on the ‘AI in the Street‘ project, which is researching communities’ perspectives on, and feelings about, the AI-enabling infrastructure that lines our streets. The project aims to add citizen-voices into discussions about future infrastructure installation and invisible data gathering projects, whilst questioning how open and responsible the current processes are. The project has collaborative teams working in London, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Coventry, with the site of the Coventry Observatory being the Holyhead Road – which marks the border between Lower Coundon and Spon End.

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More Than Human

| Charlie

Lisa Franklin reflects on her Nest Residency

Back in April 2023, I had the opportunity to undertake an artist residency with Talking Birds at the Nest in Coventry, delving into the world of fungi and flora as artistic collaborators. This experience was transformative and allowed me to explore the intricate relationship between humans and the wider natural world in ways that I hadn’t imagined.

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The Light is Important

| Charlie

Amy Kakoura reflects on her Talking Birds residency

Keep it to yourself, but there is something in Hotel 104.  I don’t know how long it’s been following me.  

I felt it moving around, the moment I asked to be here. It makes this dreadful, almost-sound, like a cough before it happens.  I don’t look straight at it.  

I keep my eyes forward these days. 

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This Space is All Mine

| Charlie

Tizzie Frankish reflects on her nest residency

When I hear writers equate the writing journey with riding a roller coaster, I couldn’t agree more. It’s a cliché for a reason, right? A couple of years ago, my writing journey hit a bone-crushing low when my second agent left the industry, and I decided to get off the roller coaster. In fact, I shut down the writing-ride completely- which was fine for a year, until not writing began to feel just as disappointing as writing. Did this mean I was ready to get back on the writing-ride? Possibly… But did I want it to be the same ride…? Absolutely not! Destination Publication was no longer my ride of choice, but finding fun on ALL the rides was much more appealing (you can read all about these experiences here). Over the next year, I found joy in the creative process again- writing anything and everything, from pitches to proposals, to TV samples and scripts, articles and education, flash and non-fiction… and finding the fun in writing again sparked a new idea…

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colour, pain and sound

| Charlie

Veronica Grant reflects on her Hatching Residency

During my Nest residency, I found myself filled with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. I had eagerly applied and been accepted, but I also felt the weight of my own expectations and the pressure to create something great during my time there.

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Reporting on The Future Works Event

| vornster

As followers of this blog will know, the F13 network – a broad coalition of independent artists and arts organisations, freelance creative practitioners and other interested parties convened by Talking Birds – was commissioned (on the back of its ‘Creating the Conditions for Creation‘ draft action plan) to develop and produce an event (The Future Works) to bring the creative sector back together, to move forwards after the turbulence of the last few years. (This process has been pretty extensively blogged, so if you need a catch up, maybe best to start here.)

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Time to find out if the future works

| vornster

A Cultural Strategy sounds boring. And sometimes it is boring. But a good Cultural Strategy can tell a compelling story of a place – of its values and ambitions. Of its hopes and dreams. Of its direction of travel.

Some people think that our city has stalled. But we don’t think that’s true – and so we’ve invited artists and decision-makers to gather and re-set: let’s collectively re-imagine our story and work out how we want to tell it.

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