Calling for Scientific & Research Collaborators!

Hello 안녕하세요! This is an invitation to take part in an international collaboration between Liverpool (UK) and Seoul (South Korea) to co-create an extravagant K-pop music video about how to live harmoniously with urban wild animals on a changing planet. 

If, like me, you live in a city, connecting with nature can feel like something that happens ‘elsewhere’, because so much of our urban spaces are dominated by humans and our infrastructure. However, nature is not only ‘out there’, but everywhere, even in cities. We don’t usually see it because ‘wildness’ in the city exists on the margins. I want to bring awareness to the nature around us because, while it’s possible to experience the sublime by climbing mountains or swimming in open waters, connection with nature is not a separate activity to be experienced ‘far away’.

I am an artist who co-creates work with people about social issues. A range of people from diverse backgrounds, experiences and expertise come together to discuss a complex subject, and together we make art about it. For example I worked with young people excluded from mainstream education in Peterborough to make a board game inspired by Grand Theft Auto to explore their hopes for the future in their hometown. Currently I’m working with microbiologists and drag performance artists to co-create a walking tour of Liverpool & Margate from the perspective of waterborne bacteria (Cholera & e. Coli). 

A lot of my working methods are to create spaces where we can safely be challenged, be uncomfortable together, cause friction and be vulnerable in order to grow and flourish together. Difficult subject matters are approached through playfulness – a deliberate tactic, which doesn’t discount the seriousness of the issue but rather tackles complexity and heaviness with a lightness that can expand our collective imaginations towards brighter alternatives. 

For this project, I want to also explore the intersection of the climate emergency and migrant justice. We are currently living through a nature crisis, with loss of animal habitat shrinking through urbanisation at an unprecedented scale. At the same time, more countries are becoming protectionist and increasingly adopting a hostile border regime. I believe this work has the capacity to also question ideas of what we mean by ‘native’, or who is an ‘alien’ and how long do you have to be somewhere to be ‘from there’. How are these decisions made? And what parallels might we draw between government policies towards urban wildlife and the treatment of people in new lands. At its core, the project is about belonging, explored through the animals around us, about who has the right to move and the right to stay. 

We are seeking a mixture of curious people to be part of a co-creative project bridging two continents, seeking to illuminate the shared human and animal need to find a place to call home, paying particular attention to stories of people seeking belonging and migrant experiences.

Do you …

• Have a desire to share your passion with others (science communicators)?
• Want to be part of an interdisciplinary communal creative project?
• Have expertise (including lived experience) in any of the below?

 

👉 Fill out this form to be part of the journey! 👈

We are especially interested in ecologists to help provide scientific facts to enhance our K-pop fantasy. If you don’t quite fit but are interested in taking part we’d still love to hear from you. 

The nature of the collaboration will be shaped together, but they can range from having discussion over coffee, planning & running workshops together, to singing and dancing in the music video? At this moment, this is an Expression of Interest – further details of meetings (online/in person) will be shaped by the participants. 

Wild Natures K-Pop is a collaboration between Abandon Normal Devices (UK), Crane (SK) and Hwa Young.