Arts festival 'all in the mind'

The festival is about "what might happen"

A month-long arts festival is in full swing - despite having no performances, exhibitions or crowds.

The Virtual Fringe, which cost £15,000 to put on, exists only on a website containing details of "events" in Coventry throughout June.

Festival co-director Derek Nisbet says the idea of the project is to generate ideas about ways to improve the city.

He says local artists have been paired with spaces and buildings and asked to imagine a new future for them.

Medieval monastery

"This is a festival of possibility," said Mr Nisbet, who has helped to organise the project with two colleagues at Coventry-based multi-media company Talking Birds.

"It's a festival which doesn't actually happen. It's all in the mind.

"It's about exploring things that don't happen. It's about what might happen in the future."

Coventry is a city rich both in contradiction and possibility Derek Nisbet

The festival, which received funding from Arts Council England, features buildings and spaces such as a car park, an ice rink and a 14th Century monastery.

Coventry city centre once made the top 10 of an architects' list of the UK's least attractive sites.

Mr Nisbet added: "Some of the buildings we are using have become obsolete, or are simply ignored.

"We are trying to combine art with regeneration and raise the profile of Coventry as a city with a lot to offer.

"We're aiming to be gently provocative about the use of buildings, and to make more central the role, and responsibility, of the artist within the city.

"Coventry is a city rich both in contradiction and possibility.

"Where else could you witness the magnificence of a 14th Century monastery while standing a few metres from a 1960s ring road flyover?"