An article I had published earlier this year opens with the line “Performance as an art form is live, ephemeral, and of the moment” (Cultural Geographies, April 2020). Are these words still relevant in the context of this global pandemic?

As a performance-researcher I am keen to examine the way in which contemporary performance-making responds to social, political, ecological and cultural events. I have previously written about the flurry of creative activity which was…

Arriving

“The more beavery the landscape is, the harder it is to find them.” This is what Laura Ogden, an environmental anthropologist from the US told us on our first evening in Bamff in Perthshire as we took an evening walk around the land to try to spot some beavers. An interdisciplinary group of ten researchers including artists, cultural geographers, and anthropologists visited the estate for four days to explore “landscaping with beavers”, and the possibility of…

Over the past few years I have undertaken numerous creative residential retreats. This prompted me to think about the benefits of these processes for artists, writers, thinkers and performance makers. All images are the author's own from the Performing Wild Geographies event at the Knepp Estate in October 2017.

Retreating: Thinking, Making, Being

The word retreat implicitly has the promise of a “treat” within it, referring to the…

Under the Surface of Knepp

(This was written as a response to the Performing Wild Geographies event which took place at Knepp Estate on the 2-4^th October 2017).

An arch of ghostly manta rays

Entrance to a wild place

Petrified and stacked

Bleached brown coral reef

Signalling death and end

Palimpsests

of lasts

 …

Deadcoralarch

Homehearthtable Dawnbreakingday…

At the end of 2015 I interviewed residents of Dunoon and the surrounding areas asking them questions about their experiences of living by the sea, what “the sea” means to them and what part it plays in their life to create a short video called The Sea, The Sea, The Sea. The video includes contributions from pupils of Toward Primary School (which is situated right on the water, looking out to Bute), students at Dunoon Grammar School, a sea captain, a naval engineer, an artist, a…

“Walking, dancing, pleasure: these accompany the poetic act. I wonder what kind of poet doesn’t wear out their shoes, writes with their head. The true poet is a traveller. Poetry is about traveling on foot and all its substitutes, all forms of transportation.” Helene Cixous Three Steps on the Ladder of…

As part of a creative collaboration with sound designer and composer Tim Cooper, we undertook a sound walk on the shores of Cowal: …

As part of the initial stage of my research leave exploring the sea in performance, I undertook a geology walk on Innellan Beach as part of Cowalfest, a walking an art festival in Cowal. You can read about my geological journeying here: …

“Reimagined Journeys” Everyday Commuting Excursions was displayed at the Lighthouse in Glasgow as part of the Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities Showcase on the 25th June 2015.

In 2013 David Overend (UWS) and I began a collaborative research project exploring our everyday journeys between home and work and how the commute (from the Latin word commutare meaning “to change, transform, exchange”) could be conceived as a…

On Contemplation: A Dawn to Dusk Solo in a Wilderness Setting

Dr Laura Bissell, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Figure 1: Knoydart

In March 2013 I attended a week long residency in Knoydart in the Western Highlands of Scotland. This area has been called “Britain’s last wilderness” and it is used by the Natural…

On 22nd May David and I were invited to curate aspects of our commuting project for the first Research on Display event at the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. We delivered a paper on "Rhythmic Routes" and the display was exhibited for a month in the…

Laura Bissell

(Be)Coming to Glasgow: Reimagining my commute

“One must start by leaving open spaces of experimentation, search, transition: becoming-nomads.” (Braidotti, 2011:164)

The idea of reimagining my commute initially seemed driven by the desire to propel myself from the starting point of my home in Innellan, Argyll,…

Today David Overend and I presented a paper about our recent commuting project entitled

"Rhythmic Routes: Developing a nomadic performance practice for the daily commute". It has been a really exciting few days so far. Here is the programme for the event:

Monday 7 April – Helsinki

17.00- 20.00 Opening session at Lavaklubi (cellar bar of the Finnish National Theatre, Läntinen teatterikuja 1)

Tuesday 8 April – Train Helsinki –…

GOUROCK

COVE ROAD

GREENOCK

PLEASE DRIVE CAREFULLY

FUNLAND…

Deviant Practices: Technological Re-codings of the City through Radical Play…