Babs, Canopy’s off to Beijing!

Canopy is our “10 year project”, an evolving, artist research-led, co-created and delivered multi-strand exploration of adoption across the globe.

Canopy examines and maps the ways in which adoption moves people (children), money and national values around the world; how it’s used as a tool for nation-making and how societies are shaped and changed by its hands. 

Currently under the Canopy umbrella,  sits Twine (our new play) and Canopy Installation which uses the idea of a ‘neighbourhood of  national family homes’ to map and tell the story of adoption around the world. 

This year with Canopy:

• We presented alongside partners Fierce Festival at [a] Non-Normative Families Conference coordinated by Birmingham City University to explore possibilities for art and research data.  
• We were inspired by fantastic art! Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood exhibition at Midlands Arts Centre featured works by Carrie Mae Weems and Bobby Baker, two pioneering artists and huge inspirations for Canopy. A Mothers Love by Cáit and Éiméar McClay, screened during August’s Digbeth First Friday at the Prayer Rooms, achingly depicted the complicated and anguished experiences of young women and girls across 41 mother and baby homes (former Magdalene Laundries). 
• In July, we were in Dublin – not just to see the Henrietta Street Tenement Museum (highly recommend!)- but hosting  “Canopy: A Short Symposium on the Irish Family Home” with friends and partners at Axis Arts Centre.  Responding to the question of “what makes the Irish Family Home?”  It was a day filled with presentations, participatory workshops, performance and talks looking at adoption histories across Ireland, Magdalene Laundries, tenement housing, “boarding out” and the Celtic Wheel of the Year. 
• We also curated lively and engaging post-show discussions for Twine with a host of incredible panellists and audiences (Thank you!) 

Now it’s December, we’re not done yet as Canopy is heading to China! 

Thanks to funding from West Midlands Combined Authority’s ‘Future Growth’ Grants, Selina Thompson Ltd is amongst a great cohort of 20 artists, creatives, and organisations across the region developing their practices and pathways to working internationally. 

So we’re off on a reccy! Myself and Toni Dee (STLtd’s Associate Director) are heading to Beijing this Christmas to explore family structures and dynamics in China through the eyes of disabled artists and marginalised communities. We’re particularly interested in ways of working that don’t centre Eurocentric experiences or artistic expression. 

We’ll be meeting up with the pioneering Body On Body Cultural Centre co-founders of Disability Arts Forum and documenting our cultural visit to a range of sites, 798 Gallery (yes we managed to find the Minerva Works of Beijing!), Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Times Museum. Plus, what trip would be complete without The Great Wall and some hotpot?!  

I’m off to pack for Beijing now, but see us on our socials to catch our Canopy adventures!

Toni Lewis