Green Futures

becoming fungi, becoming forest

becoming fungi, becoming forest is a guided tour of performance, poetry, moving image, mycelial and wild yeast experiences, choreography and singing at a series of secret locations across Coventry’s city centre.

We invite you to travel in small groups across the city to experience a performance celebrating the magic and beauty of being alive and part of the living world - even in a city. Inspired by Merlin Sheldrake’s book Entangled Life, we will imagine Coventry as a place of invisible connections and interacting ecosystems including humans, fungi, trees, microbes and other life.

Coventry Biennial 2021: Listening to the Anthropocene

Suitable for all ages

Exhibition open: Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm

Presented as a part of the third Coventry Biennial, Listening to the Anthropocene at Coventry Cathedral is a major exhibition of sound and moving image artworks that explores the ways that field recording and sonic research can help attune us to the shifting state of our planet, at a range of scales.

Newly commissioned and specifically adapted artworks form an immersive sound installation in the Nave of the iconic Coventry Cathedral throughout the duration of HYPER-POSSIBLE.

International artists with relationships to locations that have been affected by climate change present artworks, creating an exhibition that explores the idea that we have moved into a new geological epoch – one that is marked by the impact of human activities on the Earth.

‘Listening to the Anthropocene’ is originally the title of a significant lecture by artist-geographer AM Kanngieser, which maps the range of recent ‘eco-acoustic practices’ used by artists and others from around the world. 

Coventry Biennial is a festival of contemporary art taking place across Coventry & Warwickshire within and supported by UK City of Culture 2021. Expect new work by local and International artists, workshops, performances, talks, tours and much more.
For more information visit: www.coventrybiennial.com

Image: Ben Rivers, Look Then Below, 2019. Courtesy of Ben Rivers and LUX, London.

Opening times:

The Cathedral

Wednesday - Saturday, 10am-4pm

Due to Christmas, New Year and existing events at the Cathedral the exhibition will be closed: 

14th October; 

10th-25th and 27th November 2021; 

1st-3rd, 11th, 15th-31st December 2021; 

1st, 19th-21st January 2022 (inclusive).

Coventry Biennial 2021: Talking About the Anthropocene

A day of talks to accompany the Listening to the Anthropocene exhibition at Coventry Cathedral. Speakers will include artists from the exhibition, as well as writers and academics who are critically engaged with climate change and the concept of the ‘anthropocene’ (which suggests that we have entered a new geological age, defined by the impact of human activities on the planet). There will be a focus on how practices of listening, field recording and sound art can address these issues in useful ways.

Branching Out: Woodland Wellbeing sessions

Woodland Wellbeing sessions for adults who have a neurodiverse diagnosis (or are exploring a diagnosis) including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder, Dyspraxia, Dyslexia, Tourette’s Syndrome, Aspergers and Dyscalculia.

Down to Earth: Woodland Wellbeing sessions

Woodland Wellbeing sessions for adults who are experiencing mental health challenges including anxiety, low mood and depression.

Observations On Being - Live BSL Interpretation

Performances of Observations On Being with Live BSL Interpretation.

Observations On Being - Live Audio Description

Performances of Observations On Being with Live Audio Description.

Small Bells Ring - Complete Programme

Small Bells Ring invites you to hop aboard the RV Furor Scribendi, a floating library crammed full of short stories.

Small Bells Ring is a Studio Morison project, co-commissioned with Super Slow Way in collaboration with Coventry Libraries & Lancashire Libraries supported by Canal & River Trust, BBC CWR  & Coventry City Council.

Flock Together

In conjunction with Observations on Being and commissioned by Coventry City of Culture Trust as part of the Green Futures programme, Flock Together will see us working together to challenge the underrepresentation of people of colour in nature, on a series of scouted bird watching walks. 

Observations On Being

Observations on Being is an inspiring journey through Coventry’s Heritage park revealing our unity with nature.

Music, poetic storytelling and compelling visuals will invite you to explore your relationship with the natural world in this exhibition of newly commissioned immersive experiences by Marshmallow Laser Feast.

Bank Holiday Weekend

On 27 – 30 August, join us at Green Futures events in our beautiful parks, Coventry Canal and other green spaces. There will be a wide range of activities such as live performances, a floating library, boat trips, animation and environmental workshops, film events and more.

CastAway

Highly Sprung’s CastAway is a stunning outdoor performance that explores the impact of today’s throwaway society on our waterways. Featuring a unique gyroscopic flying machine, it presents a brand new approach to aerial theatre. The all female cast immerses audiences in an underwater world where performers dive, twist and float over 26 feet in the air to delight, inspire and captivate audiences of all ages.

Beneath The Trees

An urban village fete, join Coventry Arts Collective for a magical and memorable adventure in nature for the whole family in Naul’s Mill Park.

Walking Forest Coventry

A Performance Action across Coventry  

Dawn on Friday October 15th until Dusk Saturday October 16th 

‘Courage calls to courage everywhere’ Millicent Fawcett (1913) 

A felled tree moves through the streets of Coventry, carried by a large group of women.  An act of endurance and love for the planet and future generations. Planting seeds of courage across the city as they go.

Coventry Biennial 2021: Deliquescence Delight: Making Ink from Mushrooms with Lisa Franklin

Lisa will guide you through the process of turning Shaggy Inkcap mushrooms into ink and then invite you to use this ink for writing, drawing and/or painting inspired by fungi. In the process, find out how inkcap mushrooms emerge as whole fruiting bodies and then gradually ‘deliquesce’ or liquify into a black ink in the process of releasing their spores: a sort of ‘death into new life’ performance. You will take away with you the instructions for creating your own ink from mushrooms and your own writing or drawing/painting.

CHANGE Festival

Change Festival 2021 invites you to RISE UP to climate change, with an uplifting weekend of theatre, cabaret, discussions, music, workshops, craft and films for all ages.

Change happens when we rise up together. In 2020, we rose to the challenge of Coronavirus, transforming the way we lived overnight. Despite the widespread pain this virus inflicted, 2020 also brought many of us in deeper connection with nature, lowered our ecological footprint, strengthened communities and gave us a moment to pause and reflect.

UK Green Film Festival: NOW

A new wave of climate activists is rising, concerned and angry about our future in an ever warming world. Are people listening? Will governments care? NOW follows this young generation of rebels as they do everything they can to challenge the status quo and push for social and political change. From Greta Thunberg's landmark school strikes to Vic Barrett's youth movement to sue the U.S. government over the continued use of fossil fuels, director Jim Rakete is joined by iconic veterans of protest Wim Wenders and Patti Smith to ask some of the most prominent voices in the climate rebellion what motivates them to take to the streets.

Walking Forest

Walking Forest is a 10-year artwork that culminates in the planting of a new intentional woodland by 2028 to mark the connection between women, activism and trees. As part of Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 Walking Forest will deliver an ongoing campaign of activity including a camp and a climate action as our year unfolds. 

Random String: The Canal Networked

With Ludic Rooms

Random String encourages us to explore their connection to the often forgotten urban green space of the canal corridor.

Culminating in a four-day festival in Coventry’s historic Canal Basin bringing light, music, installations and projections to the canal as well as performances, workshops and online experiments.