Kim Hackleman reflects on her Nest Residency

“Language is a life raft.”
Amanda Gorman

The Nest is a home base and shared workspace for Talking Birds, a company of artists based in Coventry, England, known for their “gently provocative projects which explore, and seek to illuminate, the profound and complex relationships between people and place”(1). This week I completed a two-week, funded residency inside The Nest, in the wonderful studio called ‘Helloland’.

In June and September of 2022, B.O.O.K took part in a two-week residency at Talking Birds focusing on access riders.

B.O.O.K (Building Our Own Knowledge) is a working group of Black artists, curators, and researchers based in the West Midlands which re-distributes resources via artist residencies, commissions, and projects – with an emphasis on building sustainable ways of working/living and nurturing the development of ‘slow art’ practices.

Corinne and Daisy reflect on their Remote Nest Residency.

I’m Corinne, a disabled self-portrait artist. This year marks my fifth year of spending almost every day confined to the same 2 by 1.5 metre space, my bed. During my residency my only childhood and imaginary friend Daisy helped me transform a vintage dolls house into our childhood home. I’m Neurodivergent and was never encouraged to read as a child, but at the age of 15 read my first book Charles Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’. It was a struggle and both my family and teachers discouraged me.

Olugbemi Moronfolu reflects on her Nest Residency

I started writing poetry as a child, mostly because I was confused.

There were many things that I did not understand.

I didn’t understand why I had to practice my pronunciation when other children did not.

Rob Coletta and Craig McKay reflect on their Nest Residency

We are The Killer Show and we have been for some time. A surreal comedy sketch show that formed long ago in the hallowed age of 2007. We began working together while studying at Coventry University before going on to perform various shows at a variety of venues and events. The shows produced were often a mixture between live sketches and filmed material that would often collide with absurd consequences. Our material is often concerned with universal truths with existential stakes. With a large back catalog of shows including Picasso Did It, Mummy, Can you hear a Bin? and Diseased Rainbows we were riding high.

Tom Edwards reflects on his Nest Residency

My residency fell on a time that I was very busy with other work commitments so unfortunately I didn’t get to make the most of it.

My original idea was to start working on a tin metal marionette.

Andrea Mbarushimana reflects on her Nest residency

I’m a writer and artist. I have mostly written poetry and my third pamphlet was published last year by Knives Forks and Spoons Press. I was also a core poet for the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival last year. This year, to capitalize on that success, I quit my day job to become a full-time freelance writer. Over the course of this year, my overwhelming desire is to focus on fun, risk and exploration in my work, in order to revive my poetry practice and write a novel.