Battersea Arts Centre: Solar Flora Residency
The Solar Flora Residency at Battersea Arts Centre was part of a growing movement to unite artists and build community in the UK, driven by a desire for generosity, kindness and connection amid ongoing interconnected global crises. Co-facilitated by Jack Michael Carr (they/them) and Akshita Brahma (she/her), the week-long residency took place in the historical Wandsworth Town Hall, now the Battersea Arts Centre, in a room where old-town committees used to be held and overall, was designed by Jack as a collaborative space to foster knowledge exchange, community and explore provocation on topics of big tech, virtual reality, ecologies and intersectionality in a sociopolitical way and in a multidisciplinary creThe Solar Flora Residency at Battersea Arts Centre was part of a growing movement to unite artists and build community in the UK, driven by a desire for generosity, kindness and connection amid ongoing interconnected global crises. Co-facilitated by Jack Michael Carr (they/them) and Akshita Brahma (she/her), the week-long residency took place in the historical Wandsworth Town Hall, now the Battersea Arts Centre, in a room where old-town committees used to be held. Overall, this residency was visioned by Jack as a collaborative space to foster knowledge exchange, community and explore provocations around how ‘big tech’ such as virtual reality can be used to reclaim, as well as creatively visualise different ecologies and sociopolitical intersections, inspired by Artaud’s writings and desgins for a Sensorama theatre.
Inspired by Jack and Akshita’s earlier involvement in a peer-to-peer exchange with Hidden Keileon, an organisation of multidisciplinary artists from Hong Kong, the residency reflected a shared commitment to reclaiming imagination and challenging the idea of artistic stagnation. Jack believes theatre and great artworks exist to be revisited and refined; inspired by how tech companies develop iterations of their work, in the process building communities who then self-elect to be impacted by the work.
Akshita was invited to this work by Jack in the capacity of co-facilitator, resultant of an alignment in politic, artistic experience and interest, and as a way of balancing energies in the room. Her practice and direction are centred in empowering authenticity within people and orienting toward uninhibited joy through the crossover between creativity and social justice.
In line with the pair’s approach, Solar Flora, the key thread to the week, is Jack’s two-hander performance that evolved from an epic poem, exploring hyperobjects such as global warming and world hunger, into a world-building piece that counters the doom typically seen in post-pandemic theatre, encouraging audience action rather than resignation.
The residency brought together diverse artists, including a motion capture technologist, a meme expert, a facilitator of achieving impossible tasks and a spiritual throat singer - to name a few, as a way to explore identity, rest, imagination, media influence and the often harmful, extractive nature of creative work. Jack and Akshita were interested in themes of collective healing and a redistribution of power through this residency, during the week emphasising the value of showing up authentically and without pressure to know everything.
The week unfolded through a flexible but curated, non-capitalist schedule with activities and sessions such as a still-tree-life drawing workshop after a session about the interaction of disability with non-linear time on a bus, that asked participants to reflect on access, capacity and structural dissonance. Protopian and utopian thinking guided the group's reflections on governance, sharing, and love, while daily shared meals replenished both individual and collective energy to engage with the week.
On the final day, despite disruptions due to the Microsoft shortage which further expanded the collective thinking on how inherently many structures don’t support human need, the residency concluded with a sharing, shaped by practicing a reflective exercise created by director Sascha Wares. The exercise invites participants to complete the provocation "the show was amazing when…" in an action to make the process of planning a sharing, more tangible.
Through a written evaluative process, Jack and Akshita understood that residency encapsulated the initial vision of community, creativity, and the need for spaces that nurture human connection in a world that often feels hostile. They are in the process of dreaming about the next steps for this work.
