One of the best things about Brighton winters has to be the dazzling murmurations as tens of thousands of starlings take to the air at dusk. As they settle to roost under the pier a very different flying creature takes to our city skies – the bat. Thanks to our special guests: two of the city’s best-loved artists – Steve Geliot and Lou McCurdy; professional conservationist Tim Squire; and biodiversity officer and bat expert Kim Dawson we’ll be learning all about these fascinating creatures. Mixing lecture, performance, art, film and ecology our guests will teach us about their habits, secrets and what lies behind the beautiful dance of the murmurations. They’ll also uncover the stories and art behind the creation of Undercurrents, a new murmuration-themed film and exhibition at Phoenix Gallery in 2022.
Tim Squire is a professional conservationist, amateur wildlife photography and keen birdwatcher. He lives in Brighton and loves the wildlife to be found on his doorstep. He likes nothing better than a walk on the Downs or along the coast to see the wildlife there or simply watching the gulls from his window. The starling murmurations are an amazing part of the local wildlife.
Steve Geliot is an artist, film maker and citizen scientist. Known for his public sculptures and projection projects in Brighton, the wider UK, Europe and China, he recently created a set of campaign films for The Forest Of Dean to become a UNESCO Biosphere reserve. Steve is also known as a fierce campaigner for the natural night, and contributed to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Dark Skies’ ten policies. Steve is now active in the field of citizen science and is lead author on a paper on light pollution affiliated with the Institute for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany, which is about to be published. Steve is currently making a film about starlings, peregrines and complexity theory, and is exhibiting “Undercurrents” collaboratively with Lou McCurdy at Phoenix Artspace in January and February
Kim Dawson The secretive nature of our bats – mostly going unnoticed and unseen during the hours of darkness – has fascinated and mystified our cultures and civilisations for centuries! Mostly flying under the cover of darkness and creeping in the shadows, Kim Dawson has worked with bats, (and maybe absorbed some of their characteristics), alongside other UK wildlife species as an ecologist for 18 or-so-years in various forms including conservation and local authority. As an active committee member of the Sussex Bat Group for over ten years, Kim advocates the local conservation and protection doing roost visits, hibernation counts, walks and talks.
Lou McCurdy creates artwork on the mind boggling and at times overwhelming plastic pandemic threatening to engulf our planet.
Her creative journey has taken her far and wide both nationally and internationally. She has built supermarket installations from locally sourced plastic waste, taken a shopping trolley brimming with beach plastic to Prince Charles’ sustainable garden party, beach- cleaned with a vintage vacuum cleaner and filled a washing machine with plastic on the Sussex coast.
Central to her work is the impact pollution is having on the environment. Louise McCurdy takes issue with some of the most prescient global issues threatening our planet and through her work wants to empower people to act now.