NOVA NOVA Creative Lab AVON
[ A Laboratory of Co-Creation and Eco-Geo-Social Activations - making stuff happen in the in-between ]
"In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora..." "I have in mind shapes transformed to bodies strange..." Ovid, Metamorphosis
NOVA Creative Lab was established on the banks of the River Avon in Bristol, UK in 2005 by a group of artists seeking to catalyse innovative place+land+water projects. The approach is collaborative, ecological, social and participatory.
Methods and tools range across design, sculpture, video, sound and music; and geo-poetic wilder flights of fantasy.
The NOVA approach is to critically explore entanglements between people, places and local/global ecologies. In these times of collision of multiple planetary crises and 'wicked problems', our questions include: 'How might we co-create better futures?', 'How can we harness imagination on a journey towards ecological justice? land justice? sustenance & sustainability for all?'
Tuning-in, joining the dots, submerging in the geo-cultural flows, we go in search of new perspectives and unexpected combinations in the edge-lands of ecological social and landscape settings. We aim to uncover essences and potentials inherent in peripheral places.
'Here Commons Everybody': each jewel of Indra’s Net holds reflections of all the other jewels; from microcosm to macrocosm, every being (and every place) is both a manifestation of the whole and inseparable from the whole. Solidarity, 'the commons' and 'shared futures' become unifying principles and open up channels of inspiration rooted in our gleanings from diverse inspiring movements and dreamers.
NOVA Creative Lab uses intuitive deep-mapping and fresh thinking to form connective tissue between:
personal + political | urban + rural | real + imaginary | insider + outsider | facts + imagination | simplicity + complexity
myth + history | pre-modern + contemporary | illumination + shadow | doing + talking | being + moving
The scope of co-created activities includes: creative consultancy and research, place/culture/community explorations, imaginative land-use strategies + landscape/ecological-designs, enduring public artworks and ephemeral interventions. An offshoot - NOVA Formula is mainly concerned with co-production of creative documentary video and sonic works in eco-social settings.
NOVA Creative Lab is a loose grouping of associates and collaborators (former & present).
Current core associates:
Antony Lyons (co-founder/lead producer), Bárbara Carvalho/Memory Archive (Portugal), Kate Smith (participatory processes & artist), Taz Mains (musician)
Collaborators have included:
Jesse D Vernon (musician), Jon Pigott, Scott Farlow, Pandora Vaughan (artist, NOVA co-founder), Alex Hogg (musician), Lucy Izzard, Michael Malay & Nick Hand/Letterpress Collective,
