What is a device? What is multispecies connection? Why is multispecies connection important? What devices could we design and devise to help facilitate tangible, visceral and even magical/spiritual connections between humans and other species? How can we think better with, rather than just about other species? And how could this help us to think and act more holistically, and with less despondency, about climate warming and environmental degradation? What conversations could such a devising inspire?
These are some of the questions that inspired our second co-creation workshop in Felixstowe at the end of April as part of Furtherfield’s place-based, eco-social project Reimagine This Coastal Town. Through a series of immersive fictions in the form of Live Action Role Plays (LARPs), interspecies meditations and active collaborations and creative conversations with local and global artists, the project is about working with the town’s residents to ignite imagination in a way that, after childhood, ordinary life often doesn’t leave a lot of room for. And yet, if we cease to imagine, to speculate, to wonder, to dream, there can be no change. But too often we make no time to do this. Systems of living – from the food we eat to the structure of our working days, from our relationship with nature to the way we live together – are scripted according to templates which, in a time of climate collapse, biodiversity loss and AI, are rapidly proving to be disastrous. Every key moment of change – as Martin Luther King so famously put it – begins with a dream. Rather than separating imagination from action, this project is about bringing them together, Being brave enough to imagine the world we want, and then take steps to move towards it.
Still from Rebecca Hall’s workshop, where we got to create a species we had closely observed outside before creating it with a single sheet of newspaper. Rebecca’s step-by-step prompts culminated in all the ‘species’ moving, and interactions between them. Photo: Elly Clarke
Ruth Catlow and I invited a group of creative, nature-engaging humans to gather at Hamilton MAS in Felixstowe for two intentionally spacious, loosely-structured days to explore some of these questions. With an invitation to talk, present, demonstrate, or show some aspect of our research and practice for about 20 minutes each, our remit was simply:
to exchange creative and imagination-driven approaches to connecting with other life-forms, to help shape a public co-creation day in which local participants could make their own multispecies connection devices to see the world through other species’ perspectives.
The people at the table were East Anglia-based artist Michelle Brace, organic land worker Tom Doherty, The New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich’s youth engagement facilitator Rebecca Hall, parakeet whisperer and artist Christie Swallow and self-described ‘recovering fashion designer’ Geraldine Wharry. Furtherfield Community Convenor Stanley Willey was also present (and kept us deliciously fed over the two days!), along with myself and Ruth. During lunch on the second day we had input from our Youth Empowerment Consultant Courtney Hessey and our Coordinator Charlie Pattinson-Boulton, both of whom listened to what we had been discussing over the previous day and a half, and fed back.
After Ruth introduced the theme of the workshop and the urgency of tending to biodiversity loss, Tom Doherty spoke about the shift he made from working in the arts to becoming a land worker on an organic farm in Sussex where he grows flowers and veg and sells them at market. He spoke about the extractivist history of supermarkets, and shared a film he made on the farm alongside some incredible documentation of a fashion show he organised last summer, of outfits created from organic materials, modelled by an intergenerational mix of rural and urban friends, fabulously parading down a homemade cat walk. Queerness is not confined to the urban after all, nor, indeed, to humans.
Stills from Thomas Doherty’s film Farm as living organism, 2026, shown as part of his presentation.
LainesFW produced by Rosa Farber + Tom Doherty. Photography by Scott Gallagher, 2025
Michelle Brace spoke about her practice in relation to mental health conditions – exhaustion and wonder. She introduced the concept and method of finding a sit spot – a place in nature you can return to, to learn the patterns, players, and personalities in the neighbourhood of beings that call it home. Thinking towards the interspecies devices we were yet to explore, she spoke about human sensing devices – barometers, clocks, and fit bits – and how they can be used to increase and extend our sensitivity to the environment as well as of ourselves within it.
Slide from Michelle Brace’s presentation.
Armed with some beautiful quilts and collages created in various community settings, Christie Swallow focussed on the work they have been doing with parakeets. Challenging the view of these birds as an invasive species that can do no good, Swallow demonstrated how groups of parakeets in different places have different accents. They consider ecology as both a topic and a thinking method. And quilt making a mode of bringing people together.
Christie Swallow with one of their community-made quits. Photo: Elly Clarke
After Stan’s brilliant lunch, Rebecca Hall brought the thinking back to the body. We left the workshop space and went outside to observe in detail a plant or animal on the beach. We returned and, provided with one sheet of newspaper, created the species we had observed with our hands, and later gave it movement. This moment of sitting in silence working with our hands and laughing as the forms of the creatures slowly became apparent, (so little data for so much resonance!) shifted both our thinking processes and the dynamic in the room. As did that moment of being outside. In our documentation of the event, the difference in our expressions before & after this outdoor moment is palpable.
Rebecca Hall leading her mini workshop, with Stanley Willey and Christie Swallow. Photo: Elly Clarke.
Geraldine Wharry followed this by speaking about her career in fashion followed by her disillusionment with it due to its unsustainability, and her work raising awareness of this.
I rounded up this first day by introducing my concept of Drag/ging as a mode of resistance and the work I did with CHASE Climate Justice Network, including the Climate Conversation Card Game I helped devise. With each person randomly picking one of the seven mentor species we have selected for this project, we wrote quietly on the RisePad to consider how we could carry what we had learned, observed and felt into the next day. And what we can learn from our mentor species about their needs and talents, and how best we can, in return, (take) care for them.
Screenshot from RIsePad with all writing from the perspective of the Mentor Species participants had randomly picked.
The second day was about working, thinking and playing together in small groups to explore tangible, doable approaches to creating multispecies devices connection devices for a public workshop taking place two weeks later, called Creature Mode! Michelle and I decided that Sea Kale, which is green, verdant, plump and – literally! – delicious in the summer, but brown, collapsed and utterly died-back in the winter, could be understood as a metaphor for different sides of ourselves, or our energy cycles; Sea Kale as a therapist almost. In the public Creature Mode! workshop two weeks later, in which every mentor species had its own dedicated device creation table, we invited those interested in Sea Kale to paint both sides of the plant on pebbles – the plump on one side; the died-back on the other. Issac (age 6) did a particularly good job of this.
Meanwhile, back in the co-creation workshop, Rebecca and Ruth sized up the crab’s claws, gait, and natural body armour, picturing a wildlife obstacle course where these traits would make or break her struggle to carry hundreds of eggs. On the other side of the room, Tom, Christie and Stan proposed an outfit for the seal that would bind the feet together and the elbows to the side, to affect movement akin to the creature that was inspiring it. Some of these ideas (not all!) were carried forward to the public workshop. But the freedom sensed in the room though this playing, experimenting and working with analogue materials to think of things way beyond them, reflects the mode of thinking we hope to encourage throughout our work in Felixstowe.
Stills from the co-creation workshop in April. Photos: Elly Clarke
In an age of rapidly changing weather patterns, startling levels of biodiversity loss, wildfires, warming oceans and threats to food security – alongside political polarisation, fake news, AI generated content and rapidly and radically shifting work cultures (including the prospect of substantial changes in employment at the Port of Felixstowe as AI reshapes operations), it is becoming increasingly apparent that the systems we’ve relied on until now are no longer working – for humans or for other species. To find those that will work better – for today and tomorrow – we need to dream, play, talk, imagine, and experiment. This workshop was an attempt to do this. And did conjure up ideas that were indeed taken forward in the public Mentor Species Device making session two weeks later.
Images from Creature Mode! in May 2026. Photos: Elly Clarke
Creature Mode workshops are now taking place at various times throughout the year and we would love it if you could join us to continue the co-creation – and testing out! – of multi-species communication devices. What we can learn and sense of and with other species via the re/fashioning of an old Sainsbury’s carrier bag, a pebble, some old twine or a cardboard made printing block? How can these gestures, this imagination and these experimentally and collaboratively made devices help us feel the deep interconnectedness we have with other species? And how can this, in turn, feed back to our lives and the ways in which we choose to live them?
For me, it’s definitely the crab and the shedding of her shell to make room for a new one that is not yet completely hardened that is giving me the strongest mentor vibes right now. And you?
Many thanks to all our participants for their generous, creative, stimulating contributions! Follow the events page to find out what’s happening next. Join us?
The Hologram is a mythoreal viral four-person health monitoring and diagnostic system practiced by people from couches all over the world. Three non-expert participants create a three-dimensional or “holographic” map of a fourth participant’s physical, psychological and social health, and each becomes, the focus of three other people’s care in an expanding network.
The premise is simple:
The Hologram was incubated at Furtherfield as part of CreaTures, Cassie Thornton during her artist residency in 2020, just as the Covid pandemic was taking hold. Artistic Direction, workshop design and facilitation by Cassie Thornton. Workshop design and facilitation by Lita Wallis.
Workshop 1 Is this the end or the beginning? (a course for collective health) Asking for help as a New World – Spring 2020
Workshop 2 We must begin again: Asking for help as a new world – Autumn 2020, supported by CreaTures
Hologram LARP Live Action Role-Play We were made for this // 2050 Fugitive Planning – 2021, supported by CreaTures.
The Hologram was incubated at Furtherfield in 2020 and is now practiced in many different languages by thousands of people around the world. Find out how to get involved here.
The CreaTures project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870759. The content presented represents the views of the authors, and the European Commission has no liability in respect of the content.
“In The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025, we are catapulted several years into the future where all the species of the park have risen up to demand equal rights with humans. After much unrest, it has been agreed that a treaty will be drawn up, designating these rights, but first humans must learn to better relate to and understand non-humans so they can cooperate better together. Thankfully there has been a new invention – The Sentience Dial – which allows humans to tune into all the flora and fauna of Finsbury Park.”
WHAT’S ON NOW: THE TREATY SIGNING
The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025 is a collaborative project that depicts the story of the dawning of interspecies democracy. It’s a new era of equal rights for all living beings, where all species come together to organise and shape the environments and cultures they inhabit, in Finsbury Park (and urban green spaces across the UK, the world, and beyond!) Like many urban parks, Finsbury Park is fraught with environmental issues from noxious gasses and traffic noises to governance struggles and financial sustainability. If colonial systems of dominance and control over living beings continue we all face an apocalypse.
Based around a set of LARPs – or live action role play games – the Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025 is played from more-than-human perspectives to encourage the blooming of a bountiful biodiversity and interspecies political action. Think like a dog, bee or even grass and help change the way we all see and participate in our local urban green spaces forever.
There are 3 parts to the story.
Part 1. 2022. The Interspecies Assemblies – these are games where everyone gets to plan the Interspecies Festival of Finsbury Park 2023 – an event which will celebrate the drawing up of the treaty itself.
Part 2. 2023. The Vote – once artists have had a chance to gather everyone’s input they’ll present 3 proposals for the Interspecies Festival and everyone will be invited to choose the one they want to participate in.
Part 3. 2023. The Interspecies Festival of Finsbury Park – all the species of Finsbury Park will be invited to join the festival in Summer 2023.
The Interspecies Festival will be a gathering for all species to showcase their cultures, their interests and talents. Like a World’s Fair or an Olympic Games, it will be a place of discovery, marvels and broadened horizons. But it can only be planned if you help all the species of the park present their ideas.
By planning the Interspecies Festival together, human people from the locality and around the world will build empathy pathways to other beings. They will learn about what matters to them and their habitats. They will explore what it would mean to acknowledge the equal rights of more-than-human beings to the same range of freedoms they expect for themselves. They will draft the Treaty and they will decide how to connect even more deeply with all the species of the park through a festival for all. From September 2022 scannable hoardings will wrap the Furtherfield Gallery in Finsbury Park with an exhibition featuring stories about the new knowledge and relationships formed by assembly members for the benefit of biodiversity locally and world wide.
In the PUBLIC game of ‘Interspecies Assemblies’, human players will be partnered with a mentor representing one of 7 species based in Finsbury Park. These include a tree, a bee, a goose, grass, a squirrel, a stag beetle and a dog. Players will be tuned into the mentor’s needs and experiences1 and will then represent them at a series of online assemblies being held to choose the events and the location in the park for the first ever Interspecies Festival of Finsbury Park.
PLAY THE INTERSPECIES ASSEMBLIES GAMES ONLINE.
RECEIVE UPDATES ON THIS PROJECT.
In Spring 2022 The Interspecies Artists Forum will be commissioned to design a set of festival activities for 3 biodiversity habitats based on everything learned and proposed through the Assemblies. For example, the dogs might lead on the Sniffathon followed by Barkeoke, Name that Honk for the Geese, and the Squirrels present the Antique Nut Show. Different activities for different habitats will then be presented as immersive scenes for mobile phones for a public vote.
There will be a PUBLIC vote to decide which biodiversity habitat in the park will host the festival, based on the interspecies activities designed for it. We already know that the bees are abuzz for the wildflower meadows, the stag beetles dig the ancient forest, while the squirrels squeak for the new forests. But the winning habitat will need to appeal to all the species. From April 2022 scannable hoarding will wrap the Furtherfield Gallery in Finsbury Park. Everyone – human or otherwise – is invited to attend, scan, and explore activities in the proposed habitats and decide where the Interspecies Festival should be held to best serve the bountiful biodiversity of the park.
The final Interspecies Festival activities will take place in the chosen habitat to be further developed and enjoyed by the park’s public in the summer. These will take place alongside the presentation of the draft Treaty for discussion by all the human and more-than-human people of the park.
Read the concept paper here.
RECEIVE UPDATES ON THIS PROJECT.
The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025 is a major new project exploring new ways to build empathy pathways to non-human lifeforms through play.
It represents a major undertaking to do long-term work exploring how an arts organisation based in the heart of an urban green space can support a deeper understanding of that green space and ALL its inhabitants. Beginning in 2020 and spanning a minimum of 5 years, the work was originally developed in a collaboration between Furtherfield and The New Design Congress. The first 3 years are being supported by CreaTures Creative Practices for Transformational Futures. CreaTures project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870759. The content presented represents the views of the authors, and the European Commission has no liability in respect of the content.
Artistic Direction by Ruth Catlow
Concept by Cade Diem and Ruth Catlow
Visual design by Cade Diem
Illustrations by Sajan Rai
LARP Design and Hosting by Ruth Catlow, Bea Xu and Max Dovey
LARP Player Assistance by Yejide Cordner
LARP Player Support by Lekey Leideker and Tanya Boyarkina
Writing by Ruth Catlow and Dr Charlotte Frost
Music by Matt Catlow
Digital Mask animation by PopulAR
Research by CreaTures, stewarded by Dr Lara Houston and Dr Ann Light
Production support for prototype LARPs by Tanya Boyarkina
Outreach for prototype LARPs by Pita Arreola
Thanks to our first players: Shawn, Carien, Anne, Tom and Ricard.
Special thanks to Ricard, Finsbury Park Ranger for introducing us to all the different lives of the park
Thanks to all online Interspecies Assemblies players – you know who you are – 🐶 WOOF!
In a series of six online sessions we practice and discuss the social skills, values, and priorities that are central to the Hologram model. Each person leaves the course empowered to assemble and participate in their own Hologram.
Pragmatics: six consecutive Tuesdays, starting September 8 and finishing on October 20th. 6-9pm London Time, [1-4pm Thunder Bay (Eastern Standard Time)], and [1-4am Singapore Time], on Zoom.
The course is fully booked but find out here how you can get involved.
The Hologram is a mythoreal viral distribution system for non-expert healthcare, practiced from couches around the world. The premise is simple: three people – the ‘Triangle’ – meet on a regular basis, digitally or in person, to focus on the physical, mental and social health of a fourth – the ‘Hologram’. The Hologram, in turn, teaches these listeners how to give and also receive care. When they are ready, the Hologram will support them to each set up their own triangle, and so the system expands. This social technology is based on the experimental care models developed in the Social Solidarity Clinics in Greece during the height of the financial and migration crisis. The result is the construction of a robust multidimensional health network, collectively-oriented social practices, and trust that can outlive capitalism. Its protocol ensures that all caretakers are cared for, and regards properly supporting someone else’s wellbeing as therapeutic in itself.
In the second ever Hologram course, people from all over the world are invited to study and practice what it means to ask for help. In We Must Begin Again: Asking for help as a new world, participants will be guided through a process to remember together why and how to ask for support, and how to ensure that our supporters are supported.
As the racist, capitalist and patriarchal world crumbles around us, we invite people to design long-lasting systems for support and solidarity that can ensure that our species can outlast the coming social, economic and planetary emergencies. Participants in the course will experiment with how to organize and value the support they need to survive and thrive in the coming new world. We believe that destruction is making space for new beginnings and that we have no choice but to begin again. We see asking for help as a way of coming into a new world with humility, curiosity and interdependence with all beings.
We want to work together with you to remind ourselves what we have been forced to forget: how to be a cooperative, interdependent species. In this project, the person who articulates their needs and asks for support can take us to a whole new world.
Contact cooperativespecies@gmail.com if you need any further information or assistance.
Apply to join the course here.
Cassie Thornton is an artist and activist who makes a “safe space” for the unknown, for disobedience and for unanticipated collectivity. She uses social practices including institutional critique, insurgent architecture, and “healing modalities” like hypnosis and yoga to find soft spots in the hard surfaces of capitalist life. Cassie has invented a grassroots alternative credit reporting service for the survivors of gentrification, has hypnotized hedge fund managers, has finger-painted with the grime found inside banks, has donated cursed paintings to profiteering bankers, and has taught feminist economics to yogis (and vice versa). Her new book is available from Pluto Press called The Hologram: Feminist, Peer-to-Peer Health for a Post-Pandemic Future. She is currently the co-director of the Re-Imagining Value Action Lab in Thunder Bay, an art and social centre at Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada.
Lita Wallis is a youth worker, organiser, and informal educator based in London. Whether in work or her personal life, Lita has spent much of her time experimenting with different shapes of supportive relationships (eg. cooperatives, triangles, flows and webs.) She is still working on ways to build sustainable support networks that challenge isolating social norms, and then how to commit to them in a social context that is so hostile to putting down roots. Four years ago she and two friends made a lifelong commitment to The Tripod, a platonic support system, which aims to provide much of the financial, emotional and housing support that many people end up relying on couple relationships for. She hopes to bring some learning from this experience, plus some seeds of inspiration from her work with young people and her avid sci-fi habit, to set founding Hologram members fourth in good stead.
This course is supported by Furtherfield and CreaTures – Creative Practices for Transformational Futures. CreaTures project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870759. The content presented represents the views of the authors, and the European Commission has no liability in respect of the content.
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