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Christie Swallow
Christie is an artist and designer. Their work engages with topics of ecology, technoscience and heterodoxy through sound, installation, textiles, collaborative drawing, and archival research. Their practice forefronts engagement and co-creation, seeking to create participatory art and design processes.
Christie was most recently Design Researcher in Residence at the Design Museum’s Future Observatory, where they researched Parakeets and Urban Ecology through textile countermapping, guided walks and creating more-than-human music.
They previously undertook residencies at the European Commission, The University of Birmingham and Hangar CIA. The 2020 recipient of the RIBA Boyd Auger Scholarship, Christie has exhibited widely and previously studied at The Royal College of Art and The University of Cambridge, where they also held a visiting lectureship.
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Carved by David Swallow,
Designed by Christie Swallow
Reclaimed Ash, Beech, Oak and Walnut coated with Danish Oil.
25x25x44cm
2025
There is a bird housing crisis. Deforestation of mature woodland is putting pressure on available nesting spaces, especially within urban settings. Birdhives is a collaboration between our fine feathered friends and two makers with bird toponyms. Crafted by David Swallow and designed by Christie Swallow, the series takes inspiration from more-than-human design practices of nests, hives and other dwellings to create remedial housing infrastructure. Each hive is composed of discarded hardwoods, making use of scraps otherwise too small to have "productive" value, which are then composed into strips, CNC cut and then hand carved to create a form that appears both artificial and organic.
This series seeks to redress the bird-nesting crisis, providing new spaces for future generations to hatch, and support multi-species cohabitation. Existing Birdhives (at the Design Museum and Outhouse Gallery, London) already show evidence of seed caching by small birds in anticipation of roosting season. They are being monitored to evaluate and refine our interspecies, intergenerational collaboration.
Carved by David Swallow,
Designed by Christie Swallow
Reclaimed Ash, Beech, Oak and Walnut coated with Danish Oil.
24x24x62cm and 25x25x50cm
2025