Saturday 21 November 2020

Midlands Hub featured artist Melissandre Varin continues their ‘DIASPOURING’ project with a residency entitled ‘[Dis]locating [artist] residency: Autumn’ which has taking place  in Arcadia (City Arcade, Corporation Street, CV1 3HW), a shopfront gallery in the Coventry city centre.

This has been enabled by an Artspace in Action Award from Coventry Artspace, whose core work is to provide affordable spaces for visual artists to work and exhibit in, and opportunities for their development.

The residency  comprises of a series of events and activities including  a living space, ‘an installation inviting beings traversing Coventry to re-imagine and de-compose the multiple ways displaced/exotic/staple body-food grow roots with hybridizing lands as an act of resistance to dominant systems of oppression’.

Weaving intimate ways to navigate through tightening Covid19 regulations ‘film sharing and conversation’ facilitated by melissandre started with groups of six, moved to one household at a time and have been an incredibly humbling experience. Alongside melissandre, artist Ryan Christopher have shared and held an inspiring space for conversation and Adele Mary Reed, Sioda Adams, and Lanaire Aderemi were preparing to share the following Saturdays. Events have been postponed to melissandre’s next residency with Coventry Artspace in February 2021, or are moving to podcast-like intimate conversations and Instagram live conversations.

melissandre invite you to the last communal ‘film sharing and conversation’ on Saturday 21 November from 6:30pm via Zoom, an event in between the UK and Martinique. Please book your ticket asap : (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/handle-with-care-prendreavec-soin-tickets-128054651911