"Be part of the Interspecies Revolution!" - Announcing the Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025
A major new collaboration between The New Design Congress x Furtherfield, London
“In The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025, we are catapulted several years into the future where all the species of the park have risen up to demand equal rights with humans. After much unrest, it has been agreed that a treaty will be drawn up, designating these rights, but first humans must learn to better relate to and understand other species, so they can cooperate better together. Thankfully, there has been a new invention - The Sentience Dial - which allows humans to tune into all the flora and fauna of Finsbury Park.”
The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025 is a multi-year programme by The New Design Congress and Furtherfield, composed of multiple collaborative live events that together propose a collective vision of equal rights for all the species of Finsbury Park. During the different stages of the project, we are looking to explore and transform collectively the material, cultural, social and psychic networks of life that constitute urban green spaces in Finsbury Park, the UK, the world and beyond.
The Interspecies Assemblies | AUGUST 2021
The Interspecies Artists Forum | FALL 2021
The Interspecies Festival Planning Showcase | FALL 2021
The Interspecies Festival of Finsbury Park | SPRING 2022
In Spring 2019, as the New Design Congress crystalised, Furtherfield commissioned us to develop the second year of the Citizen Sci-Fi programme. The result was The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025, a London-based exhibition about a fictitious future event in which a multi-species political delegation negotiates an mutual agreement on behalf of all organisms in the face of an unprecedented threat. The Treaty serves as the framing for an ambitious multi-day Live Action Roleplay and artist collaboration with residents from in and around the park.
Originally planned for Summer 2020, we’re thrilled to be now launching the first of a 4-part programme over the next year, leveraging our research into infrastructure and identity to provoke inter-species empathy at a time of tremendous uncertainty.
"The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025 is an immersive game that takes place in public space - online and in Finsbury Park - which connects players with the lived experiences of stressed and fragile life-forms in the park. The aim of the game is to inhabit a character of another species, representing what's at stake for them in park living, and negotiating new terms for an abundant life."
- Ruth Catlow (Furtherfield).
"The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025 compels its audience to consider the agency and cognition abilities of other species. Breaking free of the flattened, exhausting interfaces we have become accustomed to, this project borrows game mechanics and XR tools that have flourished during the pandemic. The Interspecies Assemblies are the first events of the project, hosted in an online environment that aims to create a deeply participatory and memorable play space primed to generate urgent messages for action."
- Cade Diehm (New Design Congress).
The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025 is a major new project exploring new ways to build empathy pathways to non-human lifeforms through play. It is conceived by Cade Diehm (New Design Congress) and Ruth Catlow (Furtherfield).
This project is supported by CreaTures Creative Practices for Transformational Futures. CreaTures project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870759. The content presented represents the views of the authors, and the European Commission has no liability in respect of the content.
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