Professor Cathy Turner

My current research concerns open air performance, the histories of our complex relationships with plants and planting, and the ways in which the garden is a performance space. This work concerns the ways that performance engages, has engaged or might engage with the richness of outdoor culture, and the often painful histories that have formed our environments, including the human and more-than-human participants. A range of projects explore these concerns in different ways, and lead me into thinking about environmental crisis as simultaneously a cultural and political one, which cannot be addressed through technological 'solutions' alone.

This research takes the form of a monograph on 'Performing Gardens' (under contract); work on the interpretation of National Trust gardens in Cornwall; work to commission, promote and research outdoor and environmentally-engaged performance, and research into cultural histories of tea. I have particular interest in South Indian performance, and in examining the cultural legacies of British colonialism in India (for both countries).

More generally, my work concerns dramaturgies of place and space, including walking art, site-based performance and what performance does within and as part of place.

Projects include:

'Cornish Gardens of the National Trust and Global Plant Collecting' (NT Seed fund, Duterloo) and 'Increasing public access to and understanding of National Trust Cornwall’s colonial heritage of plant collection and cultivation' (AHRC Impact Accelerator, Turner) (2023). These linked projects explore the history of Cornish involvement in plant collecting, in a wider context of land exploitation and colonisation, with a view to sharing these histories through performance, in collaboration with Small Acts, Cornwall.

Taking Tea (exeter.ac.uk) (2022-3), a BA-funded project to examine cultural histories of tea production, in relation to current ecological and cultural concerns, and a green tourism. Research partners are: Jerri Daboo, Drama; Gill Juleff, Archaeology; Nadine Vanniasinkam, Cultural Studies, ICES, Colombo; Tathageta Neogi, Immersive Trails, Kolkata; Priya Tamma, Ecology, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.

Creative Peninsula (2022). Building on previous work with Evelyn O'Malley (see below), for this AHRC-funded KE project led by Tom Trevor, we have commissioned two performances to engage with outdoor cultures in the SW Peninsula, and will be working with Tom to develop a two-day event exploring collaborative approaches to ‘place-making’ and culture-led regeneration in Devon and Cornwall. Aimed at artists, arts professionals and local authorities, it will consider how culture can help to reinvigorate and re-tell stories of place, working to overcome barriers to social inclusion, wellbeing and environmental sustainability.

Green Stages (2022): An initiative funded by the ADR fund (internal) to create a green stage space on Streatham Campus, and to work with the network O-P-E-N to host a symposium and several events around the subject of outdoor performance.

O-P-E-N (ongoing): Establishing an Exeter-based network into open air performance and environment.

Outside the Box (2021): Open Air Performance as Pandemic Response. This AHRC Covid-19 rapid response project, led by Evelyn O'Malley (PI) and with Tim Coles (Business School) and Giselle Garcia (Drama), concerned the potential for open air performance to develop appreciation and care for the environment as we attempt to 'build back better' in a safe way. We commissioned work for performance in Exeter in 2021, with publications in Frontiers (2022) and Critical Stages/Scènes critiques (forthcoming).Outdoor Cultures – Open Air Performance, Environment and Wellbeing

The Politics of Performance on the Urban Periphery in South India. (2018-19). AHRC network grant. Project researchers: Anindya Sinha (Animal Behaviour, NIAS, Bengaluru); Sharada Srinivasan (Archaeology, NIAS, Bengaluru); Jerri Daboo (Drama, Exeter); MOD Berlin (Anne Fenk). This network has resulted in an edited book, Turner, Srinivasan, Daboo and Sinha, Performance at the Urban Periphery: Insights from South India, Routledge: London and Delhi, 2022. We also commissioned four performances in Bengaluru and created an artists book with student artists in Kochi, Kerala. Performing the Periphery – A network between NIAS, Bengaluru, India; University of Exeter, UK and MOD Institute, Berlin

I am always interested in walking performances, and am a core member of artists' collective, Wrights & Sites.

Key publications include Turner et al Performance at the Urban Periphery: Insights from South India (Routledge, 2022); Dramaturgy and Architecture: Theatre, Utopia and The Built Environment (Palgrave, 2015), shortlisted for the TAPRA David Bradby award, 2017; Dramaturgy and Performance, 2nd Edition (Palgrave, 2016), with Synne Behrndt; The Architect-Walker: A Mis-Guide (Triarchy, 2018) with Wrights & Sites - one of a series of published 'Mis-Guides' which provide provocations for disrupted walking.

I welcome PhDs on environmental humanities, walking art, outdoor performance (historical and contemporary), site-specific performance, South Asian plantation histories and performance, performance and landscape, performance and architecture, Indian performance art, dramaturgy and performance writing.

My sometimes less up to date research blog can be found at http://expandeddramaturgies.com/category/sometimeswalking/

Information on Wrights & Sites can be found at http://www.mis-guide.com/

Personal tutees can book a meeting via email. I'm happy to talk and can usually arrange to speak without too much delay.

Biography:

Cathy Turner is Professor of Drama at the University of Exeter. Her book, Dramaturgy and Architecture: Theatre, Utopia and the Built Environment, was published by Palgrave in 2015. She is joint author, with Synne Behrndt, of Dramaturgy and Performance (Palgrave Macmillan 2008), and joint editor, with Behrndt, of Palgrave's 'New Dramaturgies' book series. She is a core member of Wrights & Sites, a group of artists whose work is concerned with our relationship with space and place. Their most recent work is The Architect-Walker: A Mis-Guide (2018). In 2010, the company completed a major public art commission for Weston-super-Mare, curated by Situations and Field Arts and funded by CABE. She has published on dramaturgy, writing for performance, space and place and led grants investigating performance and urbanisation in South India, and dramaturgies that are 'porous', inviting participation.

Research supervision:

I welcome PhDs on walking art, site-specific performance, open air performance, South Asian plantation histories and performance, performance and landscape, performance and architecture, Indian performance art, dramaturgy and performance writing.

Here are some of the PhD projects I have supervised recently:

Giselle Garcia: ‘Translation, Adaptation and Walking: The Fate of Shakespearean Performance in Manila's Urban Forms.’ (UoE funding, College of Humanities) (2021)

Elaine Faull: 'Theatre Alibi : An exploration of the impact on well-being and resilience on young audiences', collaborative PhD with Theatre Alibi, Exeter, (UoE funding, College of Humanities) (2020)

Tom Nicholas: 'Representations of Regional English Cities in Contemporary Theatre', College of Humanities funding. (2020)

Aparna Mahiyaria: 'Understanding Politics, Aesthetics and Performance: A Study of the Development of Street Theatre in Delhi, India' (Co-Supervisor, Prof. Shivali Tukdeo, NIAS, Bengaluru, India). (NIAS split site PhD programme, UoE funded). (2019)

Lizzie Philps: 'Parents Performing Walking: how can understandings of walking performance be enhanced through participatory live art works which include children?' (2019)

Evelyn O'Malley: 'Outdoor Shakespeare: Inheriting, reinterpreting and reimagining heritage', (AHRC funding), (2016).

Swati Arora: 'Performance in Public Spaces: Urban Intervention as Participatory Praxis' (NIAS split site PhD programme, UoE funded) (2016).