Achieving the recommendations of TfD action plans for community-based solutions to rural community problems require follow-up, monitoring, and evaluation which are "nearly absent" or ineffective in University-based TfD projects in Nigeria (Akoh 2019). Our observation during a 2022 Ofabo TfD project is that if songs used in such TfD…

This article explores the critical potential of theatre practice as research in interdisciplinary environmental contexts. It does this with specific reference to The Performic Cycle, a practice as research methodology that brings environmental adaptation thinking into conversation with vital materialist and critical disability scholarship through…

During the winter of 2016, I carried out an artistic project in Barcelona entitled 'Performing Home' that aimed to explore the affective and social challenges that artists in political asylum or refuge cope with. The project began with a simple question: "where in public spaces do artists in asylum feel 'at home'?" It explored how public…

This field report from The Asylum Project, an Olimpias disability culture experiment, centres non-mainstream experiences of space in two Michigan performances, accessing extrasensory experiences as a creative form. How can we witness and amplify histories of intersected violence and emergent forms of healing? How can we invite hauntings? In…

Durban, on the East coast of South Africa, is home to a growing community of Francophone and other refugees. The most common occupation for these people is the 'car-guard'--an informal job of parking and guarding cars for tips. This film and photography documents an interdisciplinary project (2014) conceptualised and facilitated by doung Jahangeer…

This paper details the oscillation between the aesthetic and political response to the refugee crisis as seen through the eyes of the UK's emergency response committee COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing Room A) and its alternative COBRA RES. Firstly, it examines the interjection of the official COBRA Committee within the image-economy of crisis,…

Certain repeated moral narratives support justifications for humanitarian interventions, and simultaneously inform perspectives of 'the figure of the refugee'. How does 'the humanitarian' appear in these narratives? How are the characters of 'the refugee' and 'the humanitarian' constructed in relation to one another? How does their interlinkage…

This paper discusses a project that used comedy workshops to explore the humour of autistic teenagers, focusing the discussion around three traits often -- and negatively -- associated with autism. The paper will then point to ways of rethinking these traits, and argue that doing so opens up a space for considering the aesthetics of comedy on the…

This paper explores the relationship between notions of 'access' and 'hospitality' by focusing on two practice-led research interventions conducted in two regional arts venues in the culturally and ethnically diverse city of Coventry, UK. By conceptualising Warwick Arts Centre and The Belgrade Theatre as potential sites of hospitality, I consider…

"Ten in Bed" was a project led by participatory arts organisation Phakama, in partnership with Queen Mary University of London. Over an eight-week period we ran a series of intermedial arts workshops and staged a performance with under five-year-olds and their families at a community centre in Bethnal Green, London. We attempted to…

This article presents a guided tour of the Men's Room, an arts and social welfare project that works with young men with experiences of homelessness, sex work and the criminal justice system. Focusing on three "dwelling moments" that capture how the project occupies space and time, the article describes how a queer spatial practice…

"Crows on the Wire" (COTW) is an intermedial project deploying applied theatre, educational drama and digital performance [Dixon, S. (2007). "Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theatre, Dance, Performance Art and Installation." Cambridge, MA: MIT Press] to explore the recent history of the peace process in Northern…

Over 18.5% of military personnel returning from war zones to civilian life suffer mental health issues, which can lead to family breakdown, homelessness and other problems. Almost 4000 Australian soldiers have returned home from active service in the last decade suffering from combat stress and mental health conditions. A 2009 Australian…

Gives a personal account of the authors' experiences as ex-patriots in Malawi, using theatre for education and development at a time when art, entertainment and education may have been the last thing on their audiences' minds. Describes how they developed and rehearsed a play and had plans to take it to 10 villages. (SG)

This article focuses on aspects of devising and staging a play written for a group of women prisoners. The project raised issues concerning the nature of community theatre in secure institutions. Arts work in a community context is often predicated on notions of intervention and transformation. A central question underpinning the project concerned…