Community Climate Resilience through Folk Pageantry

The AHRC- and Met-Office-funded project Community Climate Resilience through Folk Pageantry, is an interdisciplinary practice-as-research project in which community knowledge and creativity are used to create a case study investigating how residents in North Manchester are responding to Manchester City Council’s ‘15 Actions’ policy on climate change, and other climate emergency challenges. The project builds on existing practices of the researchers across the areas of geography, gardening, mapping, performance, puppetry, music, socially engaged arts practices, and intangible and material heritages.

As one of the project’s Co-Investigators, Dr Kevin Malone is undertaking fieldwork with residents to create music for the project's performances and installations, recording interviews, then using methods of prosody and schizophonia to notate the residents’ voices into instrumental music. This source material will be used in a collaboration with local musicians – ranging from school children to professionals – and the Northern Chamber Orchestra, culminating in the creation of a pageant of new music, puppetry and poetry revealing residents’ thoughts and feelings about climate issues.