Selected highlights from Coventry UK City of Culture Trust’s Green Futures programme already announced include:
A major new commission by leading art and technology studio Marshmallow Laser Feast, Observations on Being (22 June – 15 August 2021), major immersive art commission Observations on Being by Marshmallow Laser Feast: a unique journey that combines art, science and technology to explore our bodies and the natural world at Coventry’s London Road Cemetery.
The immersive artworks will combine art, science and technology to trace the invisible line that connects the human experience to nature and the universe, encouraging audiences to marvel at the natural phenomena that enable our existence and are so wonderfully demonstrated everywhere, from gardens and local parks, to ancient woodlands and rainforests.
Observations on Being is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and supported by the Garfield Weston Foundation, and was commissioned by Coventry City of Culture Trust and produced in partnership with York Mediale. It is presented in partnership with Historic Coventry Trust, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and Coventry City Council.
Small Bells Ring (July) invites readers to hop aboard the RV Furor Scribendi, a floating library crammed full of short stories. The boat has been created with both usefulness and beauty in mind, and will visit set locations across our waterways, offering visitors the opportunity to browse and borrow books or stay on board and read as it moves between stops.
Small Bells Ring will be a catalyst for change, empowerment and expanding a sense of shared community as people get involved along the way. The boat will visit set locations at set times each month and visitors will be able to borrow books just as they do in a regular library.
Visitors will also be able to browse or read on board as the library moves between stops. It will also make specific day trips along the canal for pre-booked visitors and groups when an entire story will be read aloud by invited artists, actors and writers over a day.
Small Bells Ring by Studio Morison is a Super Slow Way and Coventry City of Culture Trust co-commission created with the support of National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Canal & River Trust and British Council and in collaboration with Lancashire and Coventry Library Services and their communities.
CastAway (July – August) is a new, environmentally led outdoor spectacle from Highly Sprung, designed to challenge our ‘Throw Away Society’. Presented as part of a year-long collaboration with Canal & River Trust, CastAway is a response to the devastating effect that plastic pollution is having on our canals and waterways, and uses the power of street performance to highlight this global issue to audiences of all ages.
Commissioned by the Coventry City of Culture Trust, the Canal and River Trust, The Arches Worcester Festivals at Severn Arts and Basingstoke Festival. Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund & Arts Council of England.
Nest Residencies will mark the opening of the Daimler Powerhouse this summer (August 2021), a new creative hub for the start of City of Culture located in a former car factory in the UK’s ‘Motown’. The NEST space is next door to the Daimler Powerhouse, the new home for Talking Birds and its environmentally charged ecosystem for independent artists and makers in the city.
The residencies, co-created with Talking Birds, provide time, space and conversations with other artists, and are designed to allow creatives to think, experiment and take a punt on one of those 'What if...?' ideas. The residencies will result in a series of commissions across the year including partnerships with Ludic Rooms and the Coventry Biennial.
Beneath the Trees (28 August) is an urban village fete of music, food, dancing, performance, people, and storytelling at Naul’s Mill Park, a beautiful Edwardian park in the centre of the city. Families can enjoy all that the park has to offer including the rose garden, the spoken word tree, the nearby River Sherbourne, as well as a thought-provoking new sculpture from Knife Angel artist Alfie Bradley.
It is co-produced by Coventry Arts Collective and Coventry City of Culture Trust, supported by National Lottery Heritage Fund and Providing collaborations between Coventry’s creative communities, Random String Festival (November 2021), is a two-week digital arts festival in partnership with artists locally and nationally to create a series of workshops, events and installations with a focus on the Coventry Canal.
The festival will be headlined by Bishi, a singer, electronic rock-sitarist and performance artist. It is curated by Coventry digital arts collective Ludic Rooms and supported by the Canal & River Trust and National Lottery Project Grant from Arts Council England.
