Craig Clarke reflects on his Hatching Residency
I had known about the Nest Residency for a while after attending creative co-working several times. It had been on my to-do list for a while however an email stating that they were about to close applications promoted me to stop procrastinating and finally sort out my application. A few weeks later I got the good news of being accepted and an exchange of messages found some suitable dates.
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Communities would be engaged and empowered and arts policies would be invigorated, says Janet Vaughan, co-artistic director of Coventry-based artists company Talking Birds, whose work focuses on the relationship between people and place.
Attempting to banish the consultation fatigue of four years’ involvement in the preparation for Coventry’s time as UK City of Culture in 2021, and desperate to understand what value ‘ordinary people’ placed on arts and culture, Talking Birds called a Citizens’ Assembly in the city on arts, culture and creativity.
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Guest post by Stella Backhouse, a writer based in Coventry. This post was originally published in issue #6 of Action Rayz zine, curated by Jazz Moreton & Alan Van Wijgerden. Details of Action Rayz’ regular film club screenings can be found here.
After the very public collapse of City of Culture Trust and the promised ‘legacy’ of Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture well and truly on the scrapheap, where does the city’s arts scene go from here?
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Kemi Awoyemi reflects on her Talking Birds Residency
I had just arrived in the country and was in search of a job. Back in Lagos, Nigeria, I promised myself that moving to the UK meant I would fully explore my art any possible way I could. In a bid to escape idleness and overthinking I felt the need to create, the only question was how? I had no resources or contacts, let alone a suitable space to create. Google comforted me by leading me to the Nest residency. I discovered Talking Birds at the best time; actively chasing healing, seeking an outlet to express my fears and concerns creatively and most importantly a safe space. I did my research on them, sent in my application and within a period of time I got selected to be a part of the Nest residency.
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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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Cait Buckley reflects on her Hatching Residency
Before I began my nest residency I had been in the biggest creative rut I had encountered since I began making art. I had all of these ideas, yet didn’t have the drive to explore them. Something about keeping them in my mind and not putting them out into the world felt like the safest bet for me. The space and time given to me through my nest residency allowed me to really dive into what was blocking my creativity, and why I felt it was better to keep my ideas in my thoughts rather than out in the world.
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Michelle Bailey reflects on her Hatching Residency
I always tell people (and myself) that if I had more time I would be able to be more productive and creative. But the reality is that I’m the biggest detriment to my creativity. I could find the time, I could be more focused, I could be more disciplined. So when I finally got the time and space to work on a new idea, I was excited but also anxious about the experience. What if I can’t do it? What if my work is rubbish? What if I fail at it?
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Guest blog by Chris Rolls of 64 Million Artists reflecting on the Community Changemaker training he led for a cohort of our Citizens’ Assembly participants
Creative dialogue leads to good things. And Creative Citizen Changemakers, the result of conversations between Coventry-based Talking Birds and 64 Million Artists, is a fine testament to this.
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Words from the Birds 