Ecotones: For the Birds

A participatory evening with Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp and Hermoine Spriggs to mark the end of Ecotones: Where the Urban and Rural Embrace

A participatory evening to mark the end of Ecotones: Where the Urban and Rural Embrace and to welcome the arrival of Bristol’s migratory birds.

As part of Spike Green Futures Week: Big Dreaming, curator and writer Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp reflects on her year-long Engagement programme, Ecotones: Where the Urban and Rural Embrace, inviting you to explore an exhibition composed of traces of the programme and its engagement activities.

In keeping with the interspecies themes of the programme, this will be followed by a participatory workshop led by returning Ecotones artist, Hermione Spriggs. In this absurdist, cacophonous, yet thoughtful eco-conscious workshop, we will be exploring the local dialects of Chiff Chaffs, Willow Warblers, Wheatears and other migratory birds returning to Bristol at this time of year. Together we will craft our own bird-language, and create playful offerings to invoke and welcome the avian migrants returning this spring.

Note for attendees: Bring a pair of sunglasses!

FLORENCE FITZGERALD-ALLSOPP

Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp (She/her) is the recipient of the Spike Island Engagement Fellowship for South West-based Curators 2025–26, supported by Hauser & Wirth. She is a Bristol-based independent curator, writer, and producer working across visual arts and performance. Florence is particularly interested in the ethics of interspecies relations in the arts, and why this matters in the context of ecological crisis and social justice. Working and thinking alongside contemporary artists, she explores how arts and curation practice may invite alternative forms of attention to, and ethical relation with the nonhuman world, and particularly animals.

In 2024 Florence published the book Interspecies Performance, coedited with Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca for Performance Research Books. In 2025 she completed her Techne Funded PhD exploring the ethics of human-animal relationships in contemporary performance from an intersectional feminist standpoint. Recent curatorial projects include Interspecies Entanglements for SLQS Gallery London (September 2025 – February 2026), and Ecotones: Where the Urban & Rural Embrace for Spike Island Bristol and Hauser & Wirth Somerset.

Visit Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp’s website

HERMOINE SPRIGGS

Hermione Spriggs is currently apprentice to a large red rock in Jemez Valley New Mexico. She is also an artist, a writer and an Anthropologist of Other Animals (working under the acronym “AoOA”). Her research explores land-based creativity and relationships with place, particularly in North Yorkshire where she is from, and draws from long-term collaboration with traditional mole catchers and other unlikely stewards of the land. Social sculpture and participatory projects emerge from this research, engaging nonhuman agents and Spriggs’ broader interests in rural folk practices, radical anthropology, hunting lore, and female trickster intelligence.

Hermione recently completed a PhD in Anthropology (practice-related) from University College London, where she was based between the Department of Anthropology and the Slade School of Fine Art. She also holds an MFA in Visual Art from UC San Diego (2012). Recently she has worked with the art-ecology organisation Mildred’s Lane (PA), Spike Island, Arts Catalyst, Tate Exchange, The Showroom and greengrassi (London). Her book Five Heads: Art, Anthropology and Mongol-Futurism is published by Sternberg Press. Current projects include an edible public artwork for Kings Hedges Cambridge, learning to echolocate as BAT CHOIR, and ongoing collaborative work exploring practices of attention and alternative forms of community organisation.

Visit Hermoine Spriggs’ website

ECOTONES: WHERE THE URBAN AND RURAL EMBRACE

Ecotones: Where the Urban and Rural Embrace is a year-long programme of events and activities by Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp, recipient of the Spike Island and Hauser & Wirth Engagement Fellowship for South West-based Curators 2025–26.

In ecology, an ecotone is where two different environments meet, embrace, and transform one another. This year-long programme explores the ecotones between urban and rural environments from an intersectional and inclusive perspective. Working alongside interdisciplinary artists, the programme invites young people and local communities to explore notions of belonging, untold histories, and relationships with the more-than-human world, producing alternative modes of connection with their localities.

This programme is one of three Engagement Fellowships for South West-based curators taking place between 2025 and 2028, kindly supported by Hauser & Wirth.

Find out more about Ecotones

In partnership with Hauser & Wirth