KlangHaus journey to CoP26 Glasgow

This is cheeky email day.. Throwing off-the-wall ideas into the ether. I hope I didn’t sound ridiculous and perhaps I said too much all in the first interaction. Slowly, slowly a bit at a time might have been better.
First request : an arboreal music idea. Could musicians respond to a tree in the plantation gardens in Norwich, write about it, research it, bond with it, make songs. Could those musicians then collaborate with the planation garden staff and the resident or go-to arborealists to get the musicians performing their work in the tree itself? Up high, socially distanced from the audience? The audience can walk along paths or sit on the grass and listen to the music with a finale of all musicians playing together. The acoustics in this extraordinary sunken garden have clarity and reach throughout.

Second cheeky email to Agri-TechEast, could Norwich’s failing shopping centres be turned into vertical farms? Could the citizens of Norwich connect with their food? Watch it grow, help, be part of it?

In my research to understand more about climate issues for our next KlangHaus ventures, I came across the idea of vertical farms. Vertical farming is the practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers inside a building in a controlled environment. Our shopping centres in my home city of Norwich, Castle Mall and Chapelfield Intu are not thriving, MY QUESTION IS, could they become vertical farms? Could we as citizens become connected to the food we eat through proximity to seeing it grow, maybe we could help grow the food we eat? One problem with vertical farming is proximity to market. Another problem is a good source of labour. I’m sure you could sit with a piece of paper and write a whole stack of positives for having an innovative city farm. Of course there are the whole plethora of reasons why not.

I have spoken to folks about this idea of having city centre vertical farms, where we the citizens can help grow food for ourselves, or at least connect with it, walk amongst it, watch it grow, learn about it. Get the schools in, the allotment champions, have socials, have gigs and art installations. Their eyes light up.

With failing harvests, impoverished soils why use swathes of landscape to grow our food? If the land wasn’t used for farming, what would it look like? What do you see?

Then, second push, turn our decimated north city concrete shopping precinct into an Eden project for the east… again, having farming as well as tropical plants, socials, gigs, art, dance, cross generational events, celebrations of food seasons, group meals. If it had the investment to start, at least a quarter of the country would come and visit it.

What are the steps to realising such ventures, would they work? Do people want it? What are the blocks?

I’m going to make a radio documentary following this line of enquiry. I want to use sound, play with sound and conjure up a future I’d like to be part of.

Since my first post in January, I have not been in a place to share my thoughts. Flourishing in my own world of reading, sleeping, drawing, writing, being with trees and other close friends ( haha, sorry couldn’t resist). Last week I left my day job of 19 years to finally step forward as an artist and musician. It’s been immense. I jumped off the cliff.

In other news, during lockdown we at KlangHaus have applied for many adventures and one we managed to hop onto is Becoming Earthly. Hosted by The Barn Arts in Aberdeenshire. 10 artists ( several duos I’m pleased to say, as I rarely work in isolation) and we are discussing Becoming Earthly an idea put forward by French philosopher, writer, Bruno Latour. 6 discussions over 6 weeks led by leading thinkers and artists and practitioners.
This weeks favourite thought by one of the participants
( pmlydon.com) is:
..the concept of lessening effort to achieve something feels counterintuitive, until you practice it.

Love it.