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Fellow Nicola Baldwin and Dr Pushpa Arabindoo researched this theme.

Invoking the ancient Greek practice of CITY DIONYSIA where plays fuelled public debate, dramatist and ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ alumna Nicola Baldwin worked with Dr Pushpa Arabindoo, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and co-director of ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Urban Laboratory, to explore how twenty-first century theatre can create new audiences for academic research, promoting creative inquiry into urban problems.

Using as a testbed Pushpa’s priority area of ‘Wasteland’ at ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Urban Laboratory and the collaborative annual theme of ‘Waste’ at the IAS and Urban Lab, Nicola explored how these concerns of contemporary urban life might be apprehended, and how its socio-material aspects performed.

During the Creative Fellowship, Nicola developed a new play, tentatively titled Wasteland, challenging her own creative technique through collaboration with students on the MSc Urban Studies programme, and wider ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ community, and by drawing on Pushpa’s unique pedagogical insights, combining theory and practice to rethink her approach to theatre as a curatorial exercise. Exploring political practices of urban activism as forms of theatricality that can display, dramatise, and more than symbolically address a theme, Nicola focused on creating an urban performativity that, through an interactive dramaturgical approach, offers new ideas about the role of theatre in society, and representation of WASTELAND as a liminal space.

Images of previous works by Nicola Baldwin: