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?
By Ruth Catlow and Elly Clarke
Elly and Ruth have been organising workshops and conversations for Furtherfields’ latest project in Felixstowe, Reimagine This Coastal Town. This correspondence followed a 2-day workshop that took place in December 2025 at Hamilton MAS with artists and young visionaries from Felixstowe and East Anglia, exploring crossovers in art and ecology, and possible futures of the town. Creative Participants: Ruth Catlow (Furtherfield) and Elly Clarke (co-curators and hosts); Lora Aziz Josh Hall (Possible Worlds) and Simon Read. Young Visionaries: Lily Hammond, Courtney Hessey and Stan Willey.
Elly: Monday 5th January, 2026
It’s not yet been a month since our two-day co-creation workshop in December, but it already feels so long ago. Christmas happened. Betwixmas happened. And the New Year happened. And then the Venuzeulan president was kidnapped in an extraordinary Stranger Things-style military ambush led by the US president, and the world is waiting for the next rupture [which turned out to be the violently suppressed uprising in Iran.] This is the world we live in, breathe in, are trying to survive in, trying to remain calm in, keep healthy in, care in, look after our bodies and the bodies of others and other species in. But it is also the world we are resilient in. The world we are creating in, imagining in, dreaming in, loving in and living in. The unignorable multiple troubles of our current era – ecological, political, economic, and technological – mean that more and more people are talking about the things that are not working… And these, I believe, are the cracks where (to reference Leonard Cohen) the light can get in. Discussion about the desire for change is entering more and more conversations – and that is a good thing.
For me, and I think for the others, the workshop provided a moment of pause, of calm, of happy being together-ness with people I knew, and people I didn’t. We intentionally structured the workshop only loosely, to give space and time to acknowledge the many ills of our times, but also, importantly, to feel what we actually are feeling in this context. The result was the embodied, palpable sense that so long as we keep meeting and being together over a selection of teas, oranges, and Stan’s delish homemade curry, and forget about the 1-hour meeting format with strictly prescribed lists of actions, we might just be ok.
Thinking together, and sharing collective experiences with people aged in their 20s to 70s made time expand in a way that most templates of organisation today do not allow. Through Simon, we were taken to 1980s Thatcher’s London with the closing down of art spaces. As he was talking I thought of Derek Jarman’s films from that period, and earlier – [for example, Studio Bankside, 1971, which shows the gritty post-industrial site of what is now Tate Modern, occupied by queer punks gleefully cavorting around burning barrels] – even though I don’t think he was part of that scene. Meanwhile, Courtney, who has lived in Felixstowe all her life, speaks for the people she meets. She asks, “but when are we actually going to do these things? What is the action?”
Workshop lunch – Reimagine This Coastal Town Co-creation workshop in Felixstowe, December 2025
Ruth: Thursday 8th January
Yes Elly, I was struck too, by Courtney’s sense of urgency for action.
I’ve just got back from the Listening to the Land Day, a symposium dedicated to artistic and scientific animist practices (as part of the Oxford Real Farming Conference for agroecology and food sovereignty). There, I was reminded that imagination is the place where reality starts for us, and from where we create the blueprint for our actions. When we discuss our hopes and desires with others, we seed patterns in the imaginal realm.
During our workshop at Hamilton MAS, we seeded patterns for future conversations, imaginings, and action not only with other townspeople but also the more-than-human life in the town and its surroundings.
Everyone made crucial contributions to the development of our upcoming public art commission in Felixstowe. The ideas flowed and grew between us as we discussed the proposal by one of our younger LARP participants last spring called Rewilding the Ruins. This proposal also inspired and enthused visitors to our exhibition last summer. The act of ceding sites abandoned by humans to other creatures of the town honours human heritage while recognising the biodiverse communities that emerge and thrive there. Lora suggested the term “renaturing” rather than “rewilding,” as we are prioritising biodiversity in relatively small sites rather than introducing apex predators to large areas of land.
Hopefully, the artwork that Lily goes on to make will not only inspire everyone in the town to get involved in our creative activities and other practical environmental actions, but also support a conversation about how everyone can make simple but important nature-connections – just by turning curious attention to the other lives that thrive in these places.
Life loves to be appreciated! Noticing and appreciation are the first steps to caring.
There was a moment in the workshop where I heard you talk about the importance of love. We were talking about political developments down the English East coast and the wider Earth crisis, and how to “stay with the troubles”.
You asked, “How can we care for anything if we don’t first love it?”
This really struck me because after years of working with critical practice in the artworld I was shocked to realise how rare it is to hear someone talk about love. And when the embers of love fade, the world becomes arid, and our eyes and hearts dull.
Noticing and appreciating the brambles that provide food and shelter for insects and birds around the old military placements of Landguard, and the peacock butterflies that overwinter there, and loving the magical foxes that make their homes in the quiet spaces of abandoned railway stations might be the most important thing anyone can do.
There’s already such a spirited mutualism here in places like Cuppa, our community cafe, and community growing project Edible Felixstowe. And plans are afoot for other inspiring projects to create new pathways for young people to make this town their own in imaginative and creative ways. By generating loving attention and care for other beings, we aim to create the conditions necessary to support these emerging plans for coordinated, human and more-than-human action in the town.
And so the things that remain with me from that day are: Josh’s rage for the cruelty of the politics on the streets of Great Yarmouth and the creative and loving social engine, he and his partner Gabby have established to counter that cruelty, with good food served at a mutual aid cafe (visit the Bakehouse) and bitingly funny poster campaigns; the light in Lora’s eyes, she talked about clambering through barbed wire and brambles to the source of her beloved local river, and the importance of regular encounters with that spring to her spirit. Also, the joy of introducing a group of school children to plum trees, having them pick and taste them for the first time; Lily’s calm love of beauty, pattern and colour in the lives of other beings; Stan’s quick, imaginative, and inspiring transformation of proposals into plans he would like to realise for a local permaculture, growing, and anarchist zine production project. Simon’s slow (years-long) conversations with the estuary are based on a deep ecological knowledge and relationship gained over decades. All contrasting with, and complemented by, Courtney’s sense of urgency.
I realise there is something we can do right now – all of us – and that is to greet the birds as friends every morning. Get to know individuals, observe their ways, learn what they do and what they like, and where they live. We can do that already – all of us – without any additional money, resources, knowledge, plans – and we will probably find ourselves more connected and alive.
Billboards in Felixstowe – with artists Elly Clarke, Simon Read, Josh Hall, Lora Aziz, Ruth Catlow, with Nick the dog.
Elly: Saturday 20th Jan
Hi Ruth,
This sentence: imagination is the place where reality starts for us, and from there we create the blueprint for our actions. is where I want to start… Because I love the poetry of the fact that it was at a Real Farming Conference that you were reminded of imagination being a blueprint for everything. Because to nurture growth – of plants, of ideas, and of communities of all species – requires a balance of care and knowledge, but is also subject to many factors beyond anybody’s control: the weather, climate, labour, health and, increasingly, politics. In the case of Yarmouth, where Josh and his project are literally feeding love to the local community through food, space and shelter, love meets and has to (try to) negotiate with [the largely unloving views of] the right-wing whose flag/ging erections repeatedly signpost their presence. Whilst Felixstowe is not currently suffering this degree of extremism, it would be remiss of us, and irresponsible, not to acknowledge that this is part of the wider context (and climate) our project is landing in.
Your descriptions of Lora’s joy at the climbing over barbed wire to her beloved spring, (and the video of her dipping her child’s feet into it); Stan’s zines and Simon’s slow, ongoing encounters with life (and lives) of the estuary – and Courtney’s urgency, alongside the spirit of mutualism you highlight – are all fuelled by love. As I said in the workshop, I do think that love never gets enough acknowledgement or space when discussing art and nature, and the climate crisis. Love is about noticing – as you say, the brambles, the birds, others around you. It is about at/tending to what is around us. Love naturally inspires and invokes interest and curiosity, which is crucial to the desire and labour of building a better world. So perhaps if Love got more of a look in, if s/he could be part of our group with a name badge pinned to hir chest, we could ensure s/he was involved in all aspects of planning and dreaming, which could offer some important signposting when we need it….
And Lily, when delivering the final edits to her incredible artwork these past days, spoke passionately about how the work was created out of ‘so much love’ – which is evident and palpable. So love is in the work we are doing here. The mentor species are wearing it. The colours are showing it. The fox’s steady gaze holds it. The ruins of Felixstowe are receiving it.
Lunch with Bryony Graham, Director of Hamilton MAS, with Ruth Catlow, Simon Read, Stan Willey, Josh Hall and Lora Aziz.
Ruth: Wednesday 31 January
Yes, Elly, yes!
And to close, I want to reflect on a familiar criticism: that directing our imaginative attention toward interspecies thriving somehow diminishes or distracts from the urgent political struggles of humans across the globe. As if care were a choice, and as if we must decide between loving other people and loving other beings on this planet.
After six or seven years of working with creative practices for interspecies justice, I have learned the opposite. When we come to understand our well-being as bound up with that of other species, we gain sharper insight into the many dimensions and mechanisms of oppression that operate within human societies as well. And we discover that love is not a zero-sum game – not a finite resource. Loving other beings opens new ways of loving, new imaginaries for care and new capacities for justice.
How do we collectively care for Finsbury Park?
Which people and which creatures?
What part would you like to play?
We invite you to join us at Furtherfield to explore these questions. Together we will make and play a game with various characters, imagining Finsbury Park in 2025 as the place where a global multispecies revolution begins – and changes the world forever.
How can you get involved?
Originally planned for the Summer of 2020, the first community meetings took place in March, however Covid-19 has paused the development of this project. If you would like to work with the game designers Cade and Ruth, and each other, from Furtherfield Commons and online email Ruth at ruthcatlow [at] gmail.com.
About The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025
At Summer Solstice a visiting delegation of artists, equipped with park blueprints, bylaws, data-sources, historical documents, and policies, will work with local envoys who present testimony from the many human and non-human lives of the park. Together, the two parties will work to mutually devise a treaty to govern the future actions of multispecies park users, turning the park itself into a “love machine”. This culminates in a public ceremonial treaty signing event.
With a bit of luck the game, final treaty, audio recordings, photographs, and resulting artistic responses are now planned for development and exhibition at Furtherfield in the Summer of 2021. Part role play game, part participatory performance, this event will be based at Furtherfield Commons and across Finsbury Park for three days at the Summer Solstice.
The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025: On systems, ecologies as networks, colonialism and seizing rituals of power.
Read the essay
Hear the discussion between Ruth and Cade on the Furtherfield Podcast
Illustration by Sajan Rai.
If you have any questions or would like more information email Ruth at ruthcatlow [at] gmail.com.
This project is 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.
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