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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Izzy Hadlum reflects on her Nest residency
For my Artist Residency at the Nest I was interested in exploring Environmental Sound Art, responding to the urban environment surrounding The Nest itself, alongside Coventry Canal.
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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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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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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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Julia O’Connell reflects on her Hatching Residency
In early November I was fortunate to be a Nest resident. I submitted an application previously and had sprawled out a myriad of ideas for exploration given the chance to have two whole weeks of headspace. I was excited and nervous.
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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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Marianne White reflects on her Talking Birds Residency
Scroll down for text only version of Marianne’s blog.
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How a twitter thread from Amahra Spence and an interview with Joan Bakewell helped connect Janet’s thoughts about the collective work the F13 network of freelance and independent artists and small arts organisations is doing to devise and produce an event for Coventry’s wider cultural sector, commissioned by Culture Works:
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Corinne and Daisy reflect on their Remote Nest Residency.
I’m Corinne a disabled artist. This year marks my sixth year of spending almost every day confined to this same 2 by 1.5 metre space, my bed.
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Rachel Bunce reflects on her Hatching residency
After spending 10 days on a relaxed retreat-style Swedish residency, I almost had some ideas. I was given space to play with the tools that I normally use to earn money and create with others. It was brilliant, fun and terrifying (in equal measure) to have total creative freedom without a brief! Chatting with Janet and realising I wanted to take one of my almost-ideas further gave me the impetus to apply for a Nest Residency. I’m so glad I did, and not just for my creativity and idea-forming but for my sense of community, my physical and my mental health.
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Po-Shin Chao reflects on her Hatching Residency
As an artist, for my residency my project focussed heavily on exploring and experimenting with ways I could reflect and display my own identity and internal struggles through the world of fish and marine life. An aspect I wanted to include was my cultural heritage; with the use of fish surrounding Taiwan included in my artwork, art styles and choosing fish that symbolized particular meanings. Many of the fish I wanted to paint were heavily inspired by hierarchies and societal roles in everyday life. I worked primarily in paints and inks related to traditional artworks such as gouache and calligraphy ink and spent the full ten days at the nest, popping in and out over the course of two months.
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Words from the Birds 