Photos by Adele M Reed
THE POD
(funding partner and co-commissioner)The Garden
is a collection of environmentally focussed projects and programmes commissioned by THE POD and archived by artist Alix Villanueva.The Garden Zine, curated by Alix Villanueva, is a document that collates over 40 people’s multifaceted relationships to gardens and gardening. The idea for The Garden Zine emerged out of a residency at THE POD in Coventry for the Coventry Biennial 2019. Gardens have been at the centre of her work for the past few years. They appeal to her as places saturated with cultural and social histories, as well as the meeting point for human and 'nature' to co-create. They are neither wild, nor domestic, perhaps both...
The Avian Garden is Coventry-based composer Tim Seeley’s interactive sonic installation, in which the listener is left to compose their own soundscape, merging the velocity of birds’ wings, the chaos but beauty of masses of birds, their conversations and calls, with ethereal electronic sounds. The idea within the music for the Avian Garden is to create the feeling of the wings’ movement, the energy behind flight for a bird.
“I wanted to convey the feeling I get when the geese fly over me. The energy and effort their body exerts. Each wing forcing the air while the body makes gentle sounds like an accordion. I have ignored many aspects of time and tempo, inspired by Erik Satie’s ideas of eliminating the bar lines. There is no strict tempo, no pulse, no defined time signature. Just expression of movement.”
Tim Seeley
underGROWTH is a series of eco-art inter[actions] that create a unique platform for people to consider, confront & articulate issues relating to the environment: the air we breathe, the city we move through, the trees that line our streets, the weeds that breakthrough the paving slabs, the River Sherbourne as it runs through and beneath the city, the food we eat, & ultimately our human responses. The programme was co-curated by artist Lauren Sheerman and poet George Ttoouli with THE POD, Food Union and DIALOGUE.
spaces(in)BETWEEN is a project that shares the walking routes of a sociologist, a musician and an artist and the body of work they have produced in reaction to their walk. They also worked alongside film-maker Duncan Whitley, who produced three short films in reaction to their work. This project has been commissioned by THE POD and Coventry City of Culture.
The Live & Dye Garden is a garden built by Food Union within the grounds of Coventry Cathedral, as part of Coventry City of Culture’s Green Future Programme. The garden has a shared focus on both the incidental and cultivated growth that can occur within this space and looks to promote the benefits and safe uses of medicinal plants and ‘weeds’ as nature’s healers. Once developed, the space will be used to host workshops, grow plants and be a place of solitude within the busy centre of Coventry.
The Garden was co-commissioned by Coventry City of Culture Trust for #GreenFutures, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Severn Trent Community Fund.
THE POD is Coventry’s award-winning mental health social
brokerage and cultural hub, its unique approach builds capacity for creativity,
innovation, regeneration and activism.
THE POD is cited as being a culturally impacting arts and mental health organisation in Coventry’s Cultural Strategy and was actively involved in engaging communities of interest and artists in the development of the City of Culture bid and consequently are now delivery partners in ‘Green Futures’.
“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.”
Gertrude Jekyll
THE POD believes nature has a huge impact on people’s wellbeing and mental health. Food Union was founded by The Pod in 2014 – as the name implies – uses the simple power of food to bring communities together, to find healthier ways of producing and eating food, but also of thinking about and enacting community and civic identity. Food Union currently has over 100 members who collectively manage/work our ¾ acre community food growing site affectionately known as CV5.
In addition, The Pod/Food Union have commissioned hosted and curated an artist in residency programme at CV5, monthly gatherings and folk gigs around the fire in the evening and at weekends, ground breaking events, midsummer celebrations, structure building and eco narrative walks led by poets. Last year we were delivery partners for the inaugural CHANGE festival, which saw us co-curate a Folk Song Nature Walk with internationally acclaimed Sam Lee.
THE POD have also been awarded funds for underGROWTH. underGROWTH is a series of eco-art inter[actions] that create a unique platform for people to consider, confront & articulate issues relating to the environment: the air we breathe, the city we move through, the trees that line our streets, the weeds that breakthrough the paving slabs, the River Sherbourne as it runs through and beneath the city, the food we eat, & ultimately our human responses.
underGROWTH aims to awaken/radicalise how people interact with the city by cultivating common purpose, exploring wildness and unearthing and re-planting the city's radical roots. underGROWTH will enable local people to engage with eco-artists, environmental activists, food growers, scientists & academics from across the UK. Participative in nature, the inter[actions] will creatively agitate environmental, political, and culturally motivated conversations and actions.
In collaboration with Coventry Biennale and integral to the work/vision of Food Union and underGROWTH Edinburgh-based artist and cosmoecologist Alix Villanueva undertook a residency across The Pod’s diverse sites to include the CV5 site and the Bob and Roberta Smith Zine Reading Room. We are thrilled that as consequence of that residency the seeds for this Garden Zine were planted.
“The quiet activism of THE POD is also a deep activism, a unique case of civic care for people, places, land and multi-species, at a time when civic care is aggressively being eroded through calls to austerity, auditing and capital.”
Dr Nirmal Puwar, Reader in Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London
Christine Eade (Manager, The Pod)
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THE POD is cited as being a culturally impacting arts and mental health organisation in Coventry’s Cultural Strategy and was actively involved in engaging communities of interest and artists in the development of the City of Culture bid and consequently are now delivery partners in ‘Green Futures’.
“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.”
Gertrude Jekyll
THE POD believes nature has a huge impact on people’s wellbeing and mental health. Food Union was founded by The Pod in 2014 – as the name implies – uses the simple power of food to bring communities together, to find healthier ways of producing and eating food, but also of thinking about and enacting community and civic identity. Food Union currently has over 100 members who collectively manage/work our ¾ acre community food growing site affectionately known as CV5.
In addition, The Pod/Food Union have commissioned hosted and curated an artist in residency programme at CV5, monthly gatherings and folk gigs around the fire in the evening and at weekends, ground breaking events, midsummer celebrations, structure building and eco narrative walks led by poets. Last year we were delivery partners for the inaugural CHANGE festival, which saw us co-curate a Folk Song Nature Walk with internationally acclaimed Sam Lee.
THE POD have also been awarded funds for underGROWTH. underGROWTH is a series of eco-art inter[actions] that create a unique platform for people to consider, confront & articulate issues relating to the environment: the air we breathe, the city we move through, the trees that line our streets, the weeds that breakthrough the paving slabs, the River Sherbourne as it runs through and beneath the city, the food we eat, & ultimately our human responses.
underGROWTH aims to awaken/radicalise how people interact with the city by cultivating common purpose, exploring wildness and unearthing and re-planting the city's radical roots. underGROWTH will enable local people to engage with eco-artists, environmental activists, food growers, scientists & academics from across the UK. Participative in nature, the inter[actions] will creatively agitate environmental, political, and culturally motivated conversations and actions.
In collaboration with Coventry Biennale and integral to the work/vision of Food Union and underGROWTH Edinburgh-based artist and cosmoecologist Alix Villanueva undertook a residency across The Pod’s diverse sites to include the CV5 site and the Bob and Roberta Smith Zine Reading Room. We are thrilled that as consequence of that residency the seeds for this Garden Zine were planted.
“The quiet activism of THE POD is also a deep activism, a unique case of civic care for people, places, land and multi-species, at a time when civic care is aggressively being eroded through calls to austerity, auditing and capital.”
Dr Nirmal Puwar, Reader in Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London
Christine Eade (Manager, The Pod)
