THE NEST invites the people of Northern Ireland to create art on a massive scale through the simple act of donating an object. These will be collected and assembled into a gigantic creation to be built in Belfast by a team of artists and designers. THE NEST will become a focal point for a large-scale music and choral event, composed, written and directed by Brian Irvine and John McIlduff - inspired and performed by the people of Northern Ireland.
 
This huge multi-media project will have a presence throughout the towns and villages of the nation, as artists and volunteer teams travel to collection points to find out about and gather in the objects that people wish to donate. A multitude of items, small and large, will be collected from donors who will be asked to attach a baggage label illustrating how they are connected to their donated object. Donors will be filmed with their objects and the objects will be photographed, catalogued and under the direction of an artistic design team, take a single shape that will become THE NEST.
 
Words from these baggage labels together with film footage of people making their donations will be transformed into a large-scale musical work that will be performed by an orchestra and large community chorus made up of people from all over Northern Ireland: professional and unemployed people, young and not so young, farmers, doctors, bankers, shop-keepers, and people with disabilities amongst many others.
 
With thousands of objects and labels and hundreds of singing voices and musicians, THE NEST will be a far reaching, all embracing, sonic and sculptural landscape that examines and questions relationships between people and the things that we surround ourselves with -  the things from which we make our own nests.
 

 
Dumbworld lead artists are composer Brian Irvine and filmmaker/director John McIlduff.
 
Brian Irvine's huge body of work includes orchestral works, chamber music, operas, film scores as well as solo and ensemble pieces. His work has involved commissions and collaborations with many international artists ranging from opera companies and orchestras to filmmakers, choreographers, DJs and free improvisors.
 
He is currently the Associate Composer with the Ulster Orchestra and together with his own 12-piece ensemble, has conducted and performed all over the world and appeared at many international festivals to widespread critical acclaim. He has won a number of awards for his music including a British Composers Award for his opera The Tailor’s Daughter  and a BBC Radio 3 Jazz Award.
 
John McIlduff is a writer/filmmaker and stage director. A graduate of Queen’s University, Belfast and L’École de Theatre Jacques Lecoq, has worked throughout Europe directing productions including an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, a French language version of A Streetcar named Desire and the hugely successful Italian production, Mucche Ballerine. He has made films about fighting cows, pear trees and irresponsible parents which have been screened in festivals from Tehran to Clermont Ferrand, directed commercials for well known brands of washing powder and been awarded the Prix de Qualité from the CNC. As a writer John has written for both opera and soap opera most recently for the French television series Un Meilleur Monde.