Limosa Limosa
Developed by We Live Here, Limosa Limosa is a major new environmental arts project that tracks the migration of the Black Tailed Godwit from the Arctic Circle to West Africa. The project will be a collaboration between leading visual artists, musicians, performers, school children and conservation organisations in Iceland, Finland, The Netherlands, The UK, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
Limosa Limosa will connect communities from along the route of the godwits’ migration. It will drive local and international conversations about the impact of human activity on biodiversity, the local social and economic factors that underpin this impact, and our shared responsibility to work together globally to secure the future of our natural environments and the biodiversity that they support.
Drawing on a programme of educational workshops delivered with academic partners, conservation organisations and schools in each country, it will result in the creation and presentation a new collaborative public artwork (to be presented in all partner countries), a series of performances and a film.
The project will also push the boundaries of what can be achieved for ambitious, yet environmentally sustainable arts projects, developing and employing a range of innovative approaches to engagement, travel, creation and presentation.
The project will take place over the course of 2025 and 2026.
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We Live Here is currently developing new partnerships to support the development and delivery of this project.
The artwork
Textile artists from each country will collaborate online to create a 15m long tapestry representing the experiences of godwit populations from the Arctic to West Africa. Each artist will work with local schools, conservation partners and ornithologists and their peers in the other participating countries, to create a 2-3m long section of the artwork. Designs will be shared and developed between the textile artists, developing themes, motifs and design elements connecting each section and connecting the artistically and geographically sperate elements into a single coherent work. The project will draw on indigenous textile traditions and ways in which flags, banners and tapestries have been used for centuries as part of communal events, and to mark important historical moments. The sections created in each country will be joined together and presented as a touring exhibition, following the migration of the Black Tailed Godwits in Spring and Autumn 2026.
The presentation of the work will respond to the question of how to make accessible, large-scale productions with minimum carbon footprint and waste materials, that can be presented in multiple places internationally. A large curved sculptural structure upon which the tapestry will be hung, will be designed with a scaffolding company in the UK. This structure will be replicable in each country, working with a local company using scaffolding elements which are internationally standardised. The artwork will be presented in a large indoor space, potentially a gallery, but ideally a municipal space that is accessible to a wide audience.
The textile artwork will be created using recycled fabrics, offering a starting point for discussions of the human and environmental impact of the global textiles industry.
Music, Performance & Events
Alongside the development of the textile artwork, musicians and poets from each of the participating countries will collaborate, online and in person, to create a new composition and text, reflecting the cultural and natural soundscapes of each country through which the godwits migrate and telling the story of the human impacts on the species in each place. The musicians will join the textile artwork on tour in Spring & Autumn 2026, presenting a performance in each location against the backdrop of the textile artwork. The composition will be recorded and made available online and as part of a film documenting the project. The space created by the curved backdrop of the tapestry will be used as a forum for a programme of community-led conversations and discussions about the relationships of local people with their coastal environments, bringing together diverse, sometimes conflicting perspectives on the needs of people, wildlife and local ecologies.
Workshops & Education
In the development of the project, each location will host two types of workshop:​
1) Schools workshops: The local creative lead/textile artist and conservationist/ornithologist in each country will deliver a series of workshops in schools, introducing children to the story of the black-tailed godwit and the themes that the story raises. The children will also contribute creatively to the development of the artwork itself, selecting cutting and stitching fabrics, and proposing ideas and text for inclusion in the tapestry.
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2) At the heart of the project is a desire to nurture conversations between communities about issues that affect them all, but in very different, locally specific ways. Working with academic partners and schools in each country, we will devise a framework for live and online community conversations enabling people to connect and explore themes with people in their own localities and in other countries.
Partners
