For Atmospherics: Designing feeling in an era of climate crisis

with Rachel Hann, Cultural Scenographer,

Senior Lecturer in Performance & Design at Northumbria University, UK

in conversation with Prof. Patrick Du Wors

Dr. Hann presents a proposal for ‘atmospherics’ as a process-based, non-binary approach to stage aesthetics and a model for future eco-decolonial scenographies.

Abstract

This presentation is part of an ongoing dialogue between a cultural scenographer (Rachel Hann) and a performance designer (Rosie Elnile) on what decolonizing scenography entails, involves and feels like. We present the case for ‘empty space’ as a colonial idea and consider alternative models of scenographic practice built for an era of climate crisis. To afford focus to this discussion, we draw upon Elnile’s re-imagined online production of Prayer (2020) that explored themes of labour, care, and decolonial politics of space. Elnile’s practice is adopted as an example of ‘post-empty’ scenographics in action and offers a burgeoning model for a possible route towards a decolonial scenography. Drawing upon designer Tanja Beer’s production model for ecoscenography and anthropologist Kirsten Simmons’s ‘settler atmospherics’, we affirm the critical role that new models of scenographic practice will take in realizing carbon budgets and the need for a decolonial aesthetics that embraces space as full, ready and situated. Consequently, we conclude with a manifesto for decolonizing scenography as embracing climate ceilings and decolonial imaginations as a critical framework for debating, challenging, and transgressing the colonial imagination of empty space.

My talk on Beyond Scenography from the Prague Quadrennial 2019 on Saturday 15th June 2019. Thanks to Vicente Saldanha for filming.

My panel on Justice Scenographics with Kenneth Bailey (Design Studio for Social Intervention) from the Prague Quadrennial 2019 on Sunday 9th June 2019. Thanks to Vicente Saldanha for filming.