Feral Partnerships
Feral Partnerships is a collaboration between James Powell, Beth Fisher, Matthew Darmour-Paul, and Enrico Brondelli di Brondello. The group is interested in stories of entangled ecologies and world-making projects that meet at and within the boundaries of what is perceived to be “the built environment.” They received a grant for a project that advocates for architecture as a spatial practice dedicated to multi-species flourishing. Feral Partnerships developed case studies of the architecture of human and animal cohabitation and presented them in exhibitions and workshops of interest to those involved in design, construction and policy-making in London. They write:
The project, through its web archive, exhibition, and workshopping formats, intends to reach both a public and a professional audience. It hopes to provide a key resource for architects, landscape architects, urbanists, policy-makers, and ecologists, as well as being of wider interest to artists, chefs, foragers, farmers, concerned citizens, lobbyists, conservationists, and students in the environmental humanities. Our involvement in the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) in London, leading the biodiversity pressure group, ensures we will have an audience and a stake in the future of development policy and ecologically regenerative protocols for the city.
While the COVID-19 pandemic delayed Feral Partnerships’ project and brought forth unexpected challenges, the group nonetheless managed to showcase their work by focusing on case study research and exhibition design. In September of 2020, they presented their work virtually to a global audience at the 2020 POLLEN Political Ecology conference. Feral Partnerships shifted from London to Sydney where they displayed their work “The Architecture of Multispecies Cohabitation” at the University of Sydney’s ‘Tin Sheds’ Gallery alongside the Multispecies Initiative and the Sydney Environment Institute from April to June of 2021. In 2022, the group had their second solo exhibition titled “BIRDSEYEVIEW” at the San Mei Gallery in London. Presenting the city from a “bird’s eye view” they explored how to secure the shared futures of birds and humans in an increasingly modern world. You can check out a series of their architectural case studies on Instagram and a digital archive on their website.