Marley Starskey Butler is a multidisciplinary artist and social worker. They currently work within visual, audio, and written mediums through themes of opposites, parallels, memory, love, loss, reflection, process, and play.

As part of our Dwelling Programme, we are delighted to commission Marley to produce new work drawing from their own experiences growing up in Wolverhampton. Based on their knowledge of local communities and places, Marley will explore and celebrate ‘street riding’ as a subculture of the city. By searching for and sharing valuable narratives from within the communities of extreme sports, this research will open a cross-section between arts culture and sports culture, allowing for new connections and relationships to form.

From the 13th - 15th September 2024, the Urban Sports championships will be hosted in Wolverhampton, utilising purpose built, competition level structures. However, most riders develop their craft through ‘street riding’, seeing the potential in overlooked places in cities. This is an undercurrent to Marley’s work that will allow audiences to consider Wolverhampton in a different way, bringing to attention how people make place through re-defining its use in creative ways and in doing so fostering belonging.

“The seeds of everything I do as an artist were planted in the early 2000s, BMXing. The street spots and outdoor skateparks of Wolverhampton were where communities of young people dwelled and reimagined their environment. When you have the instrument of a BMX bike or skateboard, you see the street through a specific lens where architecture becomes part of the tool of your expression.

Hours were spent dwelling in one spot with friends... The conversation, sweat, pain, lessons, the beauty of trying again, the laughter, the love, the escape... This project will explore these themes by situating myself back in those spaces, now through the lens of artistic processes - people as practitioners of architectural PLAY.”