Visit Nest for more information about this project.

Nest is the culmination of three years artistic engagement with the staff, parents, children and governors at Briscoe Primary School and Nursery in Basildon.

Commissioned and funded by Creative Partnerships, Thames Gateway, the performance promenade of Nest was held on Sunday 24th February 2008, involving a cross-section of the school community, including both adults and children, performing in spaces around the school.

For example, one classroom looked like a bomb had literally hit it, with upturned tables and a dilapidated Anderson shelter containing recorded voices of children describing the moment their own lives had been hit by a bombshell.

As the Lead Artist and Director of Nest, Sarah Cole worked in close collaboration with artists Mark Storor, Julian Walker, Siobhan O'Neill, Rachel Anderson, Jules Maxwell and Helen Lowe to support the school in making this work.

Photographs of the performance can be seen here alongside its illustrated documentation, made for the Nest book by Talya Baldwin.

This book has more recently been used as improvisation material for students at Central School of Speech and Drama under the tutorage of Sally Mackey. Sarah Cole is currently exploring the possibility of developing and citing this newly devised material in London Zoo.

Sarah Cole and Sally Mackey will be presenting a paper, CUCKOOS IN THE NEST, at the Living Landscape conference in Aberystwyth in June 2009.

The ideas emerging from Nest are also the foundations of new work for Pirate Utopias, a commission for Artangel Interaction.