Marley Starskey Butler: Compensare: For the Swallows We Weigh

 Installation Shot,  Courtesy of Eastside Projects. Photo by Ashley Carr.

Marley Starskey Butler’s exhibition Compensare: For the Swallows We Weigh has been developed with Beacon Family Services, an organisation in Birmingham providing therapeutic and relational play services for parents, carers, and families.

Set against a backdrop where political priorities and funding decisions continually shape access to therapeutic services, the exhibition illuminates how these systemic forces intersect with the lived realities of families and the professionals who support them. Embedded in the inner workings of the organisation, Marley engaged in wide-ranging conversations with staff and observed their use of Theraplay® and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) techniques, which gave root to this new multidimensional artwork.

By observing family and carer-child-therapist interactions, Marley attuned to the subtle

nuances of verbal and physical communication within these therapeutic practices, reflecting on the experience of consciously working with each other’s energies and ultimately connecting through the joyful medium of relational play. Drawing on these reflections and blending them with overarching themes that emerged through staff discussions, they built a library of notes and instructions designed to be translated through movement and sound into films and music.

Marley worked with movement artists Kim Bormann and Marley Starkey Joyner to translate

this material, directing them with multilayered prompts and choreographic devices that

allowed them to progressively move from relational play games to movement that explores the emotional, psychosocial and political landscapes that shape family support.

The resulting choreographic experiments are presented as films alongside a newly composed piece of music, inside a large circular carpeted area whose design has been reverse engineered from glitches in the video recording system and converted into a space for movement, listening and watching.

Eastside Projects

Birmingham

Until 4 April 2026

Free entry

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