Creative Direction- Inspiration

Notes from curatorial statements and artist research.

• “place and the human condition” (curator Anneka French)

• The idea of deep time as it shapes our lives and places literally and metaphorically

• Examinations of things at a ground level

• Area of found material fly tipped (dumped illegally) reclaimed by nature (artist Janet Tryner)

• Water

  • Coventry is as far from the sea as you can be in the UK

  • access to water, local and global water infrastructure, and implications of living on an island

• What is extracted from the earth

• Protest and survival

• Growth and care: (Garden planted by Mothers who Make-Coventry)

• Belonging, protest and survival in the world

• Freedom, navigation, close engagement with natural world

  In short, the complicated, imperfect relationship between humans and nature.

“I believe the point of art in society today remains an integral part to understanding who we are: our human condition. Whether that be from a secular, religious, or agnostic perspective but always in relation to flora/fauna and the planet itself.”

- Dr. Ian Sergeant in “What is the point?”, an accompanying essay to the biennial release