How can we create spaces of solidarity and care in a world increasingly shaped by technology, polarisation and nationalism? Rory Pilgrim’s work Software Garden is currently on display in the exhibition Dynamic Spaces. It consists of a music album and accompanying videos embedded in an extended installation. Software Garden was created in close collaboration with the poet and disability activist Carol R. Kallend, the choreographer Cassie-Augusta Jørgensen, the singers Robyn Haddon and Daisy Rodrigues and others. They explore how people connect – both in virtual spaces and in everyday life – and how political realities are inscribed in the body.
In a conversation with Julia Eckert, co-curator of the exhibition, Rory Pilgirm and Carol R. Kallend will speak about their collaborative practice and the creation of Software Garden.
Rory Pilgrim (Bristol, 1988) works in a wide range of media including songwriting, composing music, film, music video, text, drawing and live performances. Strongly influenced by the origins of activist, feminist and socially engaged art, Pilgrim works with others through a different methods of dialogue, collaboration and workshops. Centred on emancipatory concerns, Pilgrim aims to challenge the nature of how we come together, speak, listen and strive for social change through sharing and voicing personal experience.
Carol R. Kallend (Bury St Edmunds) is a poet and disability advocate based in Sheffield. Her poetry has been widely published in journals and magazines. Since 2015, she has collaborated with Rory Pilgrim on Software Garden and has performed the work collaboratively with him at institutions including Centre Pompidou, TATE London, transmediale at HKW Berlin, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, always via technology from her living room.