As many of you will know, I’ve been prioritising my work on sustainability recently. Building on the voluntary work for Ecostage and the Society of British Theatre Designers that I’ve been doing since before the pandemic, I’m now nearly halfway through a part-time MSc at the Centre for Alternative Technology.
I look forward to having more availability for design work next year, and applying the sustainability principles and practices I’ve been learning and developing. In the meantime, as some of you haven’t heard from me in a while, I’d like to share an update.
Working with the SBTD and Footprint Scenery, I co-organised and co-facilitated Makers and Designers Assemble! at the National Theatre. As the title suggests, this event brought theatre designers and makers together to talk about how better to support each other’s efforts to work in a more environmentally responsible way. There was a particular emphasis on circular economy; in fact, the event was part of Circular Economy Week. It started some exciting conversations beyond the event itself… which was precisely the aim!
I continue to coordinate the Society of British Theatre Designers Sustainable Design Working Group and to be part of the environmental Responsibility Subcommittee at Queens Theatre, Hornchurch. I’ve also been working on Ecostage’s application to get charity status and redeveloping our framework to make it more straightforward and accessible. If you want to hear more, there’s an open meeting on Zoom next week.
I was also invited to co-facilitate a week-long lab on climate dramaturgy and sustainable practices in Bangkok, funded by the British Council. Working with BIPAM, the Thai Theatre Foundation and climate dramaturg Zoë Svendsen, we worked with a group of Thai Theatre artists to look at global developments in sustainable theatre and work out what was relevant to the Thai context, as well as what Thai theatre-makers could teach the rest of the world. We also looked at the artists’ own work, which was often quite green already. It was an exhilarating five days. You can read the report here.
While most of my work is on the nuts and bolts of reducing environmental harm, I’m also committed to exploring how the arts can interrogate and deepen our connections with the natural world. A key outlet for this is Daedalus Theatre’s Dysbiosis project, which I’m running with assistant director and producer Tasnim Siddiqa Amin, supported by Rua Arts and involving an amazing team of mainly queer artists. Over the last year, we’ve been developing work exploring these themes through workshops and R&Ds involving young people, adult community members in Havering and professional arts practitioners. We’ll also be expanding the project to Tower Hamlets with a workshop as part of A Season of Bangla Drama this November.
When I had the idea for the project, I was particularly interested in the perspective that queer ecology brings to discourses around Nature and climate change, but themes of colonialism and social justice have also emerged, along with a fascinating engagement with specific localities. In retrospect this is obvious: how can you make a piece about Nature without giving thought to the place you’re in? We’re still seeing where all this ends up, but we’re working with Queens Theatre and Havering Changing and hope to share something publicly in the first half of next year.
As for my design work, I’ll have more time from March onwards, when the bulk of the taught sections of my MSc will be finished. My main focus after that will be on research, followed by writing a dissertation, which offers a little more flexibility. I do, however, have a little capacity for some design work before then.
If you’d like to know more about my work in sustainability or to talk about possible design projects, just drop me a line! There’s a contact form over to the right.
Photos of the Climate Dramaturgy in the Performing Arts lab, Bangkok, by Jira Angsutamatuch
Paul Burgess 