The Trans-Plantable Living Room (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Trans-Plantable Living Room: Sites, Processes and Performances
The Trans-Plantable Living Room was a trans-national growing performance project examining how an inherently local act such as gardening can serve as a lens for climate change -- this article, written by three of us -- examines the various sites and collaborative methods used for both the indoor and outdoor incarnation of this project, at World Stage Design 2013 and in London.
Performing with Plants in the Ob-scene Anthropocene
Nordic Theatre Studies
Is there a way for the anthropocentric and anthropomorphic art form par excellence, the theatre, or performance art for that matter, to expand beyond their human and humanist bias? Is the term Anthropocene in any way useful for theatre and performance studies or performance-as-research? In the anthology Anthropocene Feminism (Grusin 2017) Rosi Braidotti proposes four theses for a posthumanist feminism: 1) feminism is not a humanism, 2) anthropos is off-center, 3) zoe is the ruling principle, 4) sexuality is a force beyond gender. These assertions can undoubtedly be put on stage, but do they have relevance for developing or understanding performance practices off-stage and off-center, such as those trying to explore alternative ways and sites of performing, like performing with plants? In this text, I examine Braidotti’s affirmative theses and explore their usefulness with regard to performance analysis, use some of my experiments in the artistic research project “Performing with pla...
Ecodramaturgies: theatre, performance and climate change
2020
This book addresses theatre’s contribution to the way we think about ecology, our relationship to the environment and what it means to be human in the context of climate change. It offers a detailed study of the ways in which contemporary performance has critiqued and re-imagined everyday ecological relationships, in more just and equitable ways. The broad spectrum of ecologically-oriented theatre and performance included here, largely from the UK, US, Canada and Europe, have problematised, reframed and upended the pervasive and reductive images of climate change that tend to dominate the ecological imagination. Taking an inclusive approach this book foregrounds marginalised perspectives and the multiple social and political forces that shape climate change and related ecological crises, framing understandings of the earth as home. Recent works by Fevered Sleep, Rimini Protokoll, Violeta Luna, Deke Weaver, Metis Arts, Lucy + Jorge Orta, as well as plays and Indigenous activist movem...
Building Sustainability with the Arts: Proceedings of the 2nd National EcoArts Australis Conference, 2017
As we confront a plethora of increasing environmental challenges, the arts can play a valuable role in engaging young people and their families in the reimagination of urban spaces and the co-creation of a thriving future. This paper explores how ecological arts projects not only have the potential to involve children in developing a greater understanding and appreciation of nature, but also the ability to celebrate young people’s capacity to directly contribute to their environments. Using an example from my own creative practice, I examine how a Scottish eco-theatre project (Uprooted, Eco Drama, Glasgow 2015) engaged children in urban food growing through storytelling, gardening and stage design. Uprooted was developed as part of The Living Stage project, a global initiative that combines stage design, permaculture and community engagement to create recyclable, biodegradable and edible performance spaces. Part theatre, part garden and part food growing demonstration, The Living Stage considers ecological principles and environmental impact as opportunities rather than constraints. As each living stage evolves out of a direct response to the localities of site, ecology and community, no project is ever the same. The stage design for Uprooted involved creating a travelling garden with and for children that could brighten up Glasgow’s concrete playgrounds and public spaces; fusing live performance with living plants. The project employed four Glasgow primary schools in co-designing, growing and building a sustainable portable stage, allowing them to be active contributors rather than passive recipients of the work. Uprooted highlighted the benefits of contributive, community and place-based pedagogies in advancing children’s agency in environmental prosperity. Uprooted film link: https://vimeo.com/142504560 Citation: Beer, Tanja. (2017). "The Boy and the Sunflower: the role of Theatre in communicating ecological processes through the creation of living stages." Building Sustainability with the Arts: Proceedings of the 2nd National EcoArts Australis Conference. Edited by David Curtis. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
A Matter of Relationships: Dramatising, Staging and Planning Ecological Performances
Itinera
This article aims to explore patterns of the creative process in which performance faces ecological thought, placing about sustainability strategies. Many scholars have investigated the relationship between theatre and ecology since the end of the XXth century. Two positions have emerged strongly: ecology as a metaphor (Marranca) or as a performative tool (Chaudhuri). We will reflect on more recent points of view (Giannachi Stewart, Theresa J May, Baz Kershaw) and try to relate them to sustainability science (Bologna). Then, it will be important to focus on two phases of the creative process, dramatization, and staging, to understand the evolution of artistic practices about environmental issues. Finally, we are going to apply the methodological pattern outlined by the theoretical and practical analysis to two case studies: weLAND (2021), a contemporary circus show that staged climate migration, and La möa (2022), a choreographic work in nature that embodied the relationships in th...
Towards An Eco-Repertoire: The Performative Transculturation of Living Landscapes
We are all in the picture, all social actors in our overlapping, coterminous, contentious dramas " (page 12). In The Archive and the Repertoire, hemispheric studies scholar Diana Taylor defines the function of performance as " vital acts of transference " (page 2) that transmit a myriad of intelligences and collective bodies of social knowledge. She claims that performance is both an ontological study of the nature of being and an epistemology that tests the origin, methods and limits of human knowledge (page 9). Not only is performance an object of analysis, it's also a potent ethnographic research method and a lens for social, political, and cultural phenomena. Taylor reminds us that the artist can, indeed, critique, reshape and transform the world through performance. As a theater artist and director of stage performance, I have come to understand that the very essence of the drama is empathy, the act of seeing through the eyes of someone different than yourself. The theater opens the world up to us by seeing it through the eyes of the 'other.' But the 'world' doesn't consist only of humans engaging with other humans. Despite our anthropocentric prejudices, we the self-named sapient ones are not the only living beings that possess consciousness. New scientific research, for example, is strongly suggesting that many types of plants are capable of sensing and perceiving sounds, such as the gurgle of water through a pipe or the buzzing of insects. 1 " We tend to underestimate plants because their responses are usually less visible to us. But leaves turn out to be extremely sensitive vibration detectors, " says lead study author Heidi M. Appel. Another study published by a team of molecular biologists in Switzerland shows that the genes that trees use to send, receive and interpret messages are extremely similar to receptors that animal bodies use every day. In a TED talk titled " How Trees Talk To Each Other, " Professor of Ecology Suzanne Simard highlights extensive research conducted over the last decade that demonstrates how trees actively use underground fungi networks to communicate with each other and share resources. 2
Estetika, 2014
The aim of the article is to suggest that one should think of gardens in terms of performances and not necessarily of architecture, painting or poetry, for it is possible to show that, strangely enough, gardens seem to share certain features with such performance arts. Such an approach seems fruitful as it allows one to grasp the fact that gardens combine culture and nature and to underline the role of the latter which cannot be reduced to sheer medium as it is traditionally done. The contention is that gardens should be treated more like ongoing, dynamic, partially planned process in which people can participate in different ways on a par with other inhuman "actors". Moreover, the category of performance seems to offer a useful frame favoring helping to solve certain problems inherent in traditional ways of thinking about gardens.