A fruitful summer – serious creative play with a range of collaborators taking me from a pop up performance at the Donut Economics conference in Exeter to other performative interventions bringing that part of my practice alive again thanks to some DYCP funding from Arts Council of England. I’m really exploring in different forms this interface between activism/governance and policy/performance and representing more-than-human. The biggest experiment just now was The Assembly of River Beings – a creative exploration of how we might give voice to and speak on behalf of the species of the river Exe and be part of shaping a new rights-based River Covenant for the Exe.  Working with Lucy Neal, Friends of the River Exe and hosted by Artweek Exeter at the Custom House and on the water edge at Exeter Quay, with a wonderful team to support 17 river beings and 30 or more human witnesses over a weekend of workshops, making, learning, sounding, listening and articulating. You’ll find more information and images and details of all the people involved on the Tidelines blog. Following this I’m continuing to probe into political structures in Exeter City Council, and open up new framings for decision-making and deliberation…

Earlier in the summer, Walking Forest curated three days of creative interventions as part of a conference on the Future of UK Treescapes on Exeter University campus. A big part of this was to question how and where we gather for these conversations, who we are listening to and how to face into such an uncertain future for UK trees – as evidenced by the outputs from the Membra scientists. We worked closely with ecologist Adriane Esquivel Muelbert and shared the words of indigenous activists from the Global South, who had met with Ruth at the Bonn Climate Change Conference in June (part of the lead up to COP Climate Talks). This took the form of a performance lecture, and we guided conference participants into an outdoor ceremony to start and end the gathering. I also got the chance to perform Running with Trees with Tim Lenton who certainly enriched the scientific aspects of the contemplative run! I’ll post again soon as there is more to share.