urbanflows: entangled in the grain of worlds, becoming
urbanflows: entangled in the grain of worlds, becoming
september 2019
The idea of the city of Coventry as a hybrid human/non-human situation was developed further in the 2019 production of urbanflows: entangled in the grain of worlds, becoming, with the piece journeying directly through everyday city sites. It sought to reveal the urban in Coventry as in fact, an aspect of a wild continuum – a place of animal and elemental movement, and equally, urban space as social space and technologically reconstructed nature. Coventry as a site for this work offered particular challenges. Though surrounded by green and idyllic countryside, the city is also one of speeding vehicular domination, concrete flyovers, and subterranean pedestrian underpasses, with the urban and the wild arguably highly separated. Human bodies are less likely to experience the city on foot or via other body-powered travel, and the general absence of traffic calming ensures that bodies (human and non-human) are restricted to special zones and narrow alleys and passageways. The homeless humans of Coventry are particularly marginalised, eking out bare survival, along with the non-humans, scrambling in the fissures and disused corners of the city. Much of Coventry’s ground is covered thickly with pavement and concrete but, even so, it has the capacity to support all sorts of life, and in surprising places. Taking all of this as its stage, urbanflows: entangled in the grain of worlds, becoming attempted to perform Coventry’s fragmented urbanwild, implicating audience, passers-by, and performers.
Project director – Carolyn Deby
Performer/collaborators – Katye Coe, Jia-Yu Corti , Annalise Cowan, Lauren Jane Sheerman
Host/performers – Rakel Ezpeleta, Warren Murray
Stage manager – Katy Stone
Assistant stage manager – Kirstie Lewis
Tech advisor – Rob Batterbee
Sherbourne Valley Allotments team – Greg Muldoon, Marc Hammond, Tom Simpkins,
Christine Eade
Video documentation – Arthur Le Fol (director/editor) and Daniel Brohawn (camera)
Still photos documentation – Adele Mary Reed
Commissioned by Sensing the City, University of Warwick, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. With additional funding from Arts Council England and generous support from Coventry Artspace Partnerships, The Pod/Food Union, IKEA, and Coventry Biennial of Contemporary Art.