A NEWLY launched year-long Resonate Festival by Warwick University for Coventry’s year as City of Culture includes a project to find out what the future of Coventry will sound like.
Resonate will feature online events, exhibitions, film festivals, walking tours, debates and more before closing with a live celebration event on the Warwick campus in April 2022 including:
- a project bringing together academic researchers, artists, practitioners and the public in Coventry to address the question: what does the future of Coventry sound like? To find out the University will be working together with communities to create sound compositions and performances, using field recordings of the city gathered by Coventry people.
- Working with school children to literarily stitch together Coventry’s past and future. Children in years 5 and 6 will take inspiration from Coventry’s textiles history and learn to create embroidery designs by writing computer programs. The university will work with local teachers to run the project, which can be taught in one day or spread out over five to six weeks between May 2021 and February 2022, culminating in the children’s work being exhibited in an online gallery, and in a City of Culture exhibition on campus in in April 2022.
- Pairing artists with engineers to design the city of the future. Working with local Coventry art group, Foleshill Creates and artist Kitty Kaur, we will be exploring how we can use recycled materials to build greener cities for our communities. A series of workshops will look at how innovative new materials will allow us to unlock our creativity in designing public spaces. Join the researchers and artists for a lively discussion and Q&A on May 26, 12-12:45. More details here:
- Invention and mindfulness. Mindfulness practices have not only been shown to be beneficial for navigating the difficulties of life, but also for engaging in the positives and for cultivating greater creativity, problem-solving and invention. In this 1-hour session the university will begin by exploring what contemporary mindfulness is (and what it is not) before engaging in two mindfulness activities designed to slow down the mind, body and emotions. Book here.
The University of Warwick – a principal partner of Coventry City of Culture – will be collaborating with partners across Coventry & Warwickshire organised around monthly themes complementing the wider City of Culture programme.
Professor Stuart Croft, Vice Chancellor of the University of Warwick said: “Like all event organisers we have been challenged by the current situation to look at how to reorganise and rethink some of our planned activities in the first quarter of the festival programme. However, we have done so and will be mounting a fantastic Resonate Festival that aims to provide people of all ages and backgrounds across Coventry and Warwickshire with a chance to take part.”
The University is also working closely with colleagues at Warwick Arts Centre, on the University campus, to ensure that the festival complements their exciting plans for the year ahead, including their City of Culture opening event The Language of Kindness a socially-distanced dance theatre production celebrating nurses and frontline health workers on May 20-23 and plans for the official reopening of the newly re-designed building in October.
https://warwick.ac.uk/resonate
