Principal Investigator
Rebecca Hillman
Rebecca Hillman started collaborating with trade unions in 2010 when her local trades council supported her making of an anti-cuts community play in Reading. Rebecca works as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communications, Drama & Film at the University of Exeter. She teaches a module called Activism & Performance, which is informed by her research on political culture, class, and trade union activism. She is a representative of the University and Colleges Union to Exeter & District Trades Council.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Chris Garrard
Chris Garrard is Co-founder and Co-director of the campaigns and research organisation Culture Unstained, as well as a member of the activist theatre group ‘BP or Not BP?’ and the music director of the Stop Shopping Choir UK. He has a doctorate in music and composition, and has written instrumental music about climate change, protest songs for different groups, as well as a chamber opera based on The Handmaid’s Tale.
Partners
Banner Theatre
Banner Theatre have been creating powerful theatre productions for community and trade union audiences since 1973. Based in Birmingham, England, their performances typically reach more than 10,000 people a year.
Reel News
Reel News are an independent London based activist video collective, using film to help bring about social change. Funded by individuals and rank and file trade union branches, they work with organisations often ignored by the mainstream media who are winning campaigns in the UK and around the world.
The Somerset Socialist Library
The Somerset Socialist Library was founded in 1984 during the miners’ strike to defend collieries in England. It was inspired by the South Wales Miners’ Institute Libraries and ‘education for emancipation’ given by the Plebs’ League from 1909-1926. It is intended as an educational resource to maintain enthusiasm for radical change among Somerset people. The SSL is a project partner via the library’s Caretaker Dave Chapple, a retired Somerset Postman, trades union agitator, and socialist author.
The Southwest Region Trade Union Council
The Southwest Region Trade Union Council represents around half a million trade union members. They work to improve workers’ rights and promote decent jobs in the region, where many people rely on low pay. The SWRTUC are a project partner, also via Dave Chapple, who is a Representative to their Executive Committee.
The Working-Class Movement Library
The Working-Class Movement Library in Salford holds over 200 years of records documenting organising and campaigning by ordinary people, including some of the earliest trade union documents to survive, and materials offering unique insight into workers’ theatre and trade union plays. Dedicated to the stories of Britain’s working classes from the beginning of industrialisation to the present day, the collection continues to evolve, with donations from campaigners, activist groups and trade unions. The WCML are a partner on the project.
Advisors
Clara de Andrade
Clara de Andradeis an actor, singer, activist, teacher and researcher in Theatre Arts. Her main field of research is the transnational networks of the Theatre of the Oppressed and Augusto Boal. She is also a TO practitioner. In 2020 she was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Global Theatre Histories & Developing Theatre Project at LMU Munich. She is currently conducting postdoctoral research at the Postgraduate Program in Performing Arts at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro – PPGAC/UNIRIO funded by the FAPERJ Foundation.
Gustavo Guenzburger
Gustavo Guenzburger is an artist, activist, teacher and researcher in Theatre Arts. His main fields of interest are transnationality and modes of production in theatre. In 2020 he was Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Global Theatre Histories & Developing Theatre Project at LMU Munich. He actively participates in many movements of theatre workers in Rio de Janeiro, such as MATER and Reage, Artista! He is currently conducting postdoctoral research at the Postgraduate Program in Performing Arts at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro – PPGAC/UNIRIO funded by FAPERJ Foundation.
Aparna Mahiyaria
Aparna Mahiyaria is a lecturer in drama at the University of Exeter. Her research covers street theatre practices in New Delhi and the importance of political organising for enhancing the efficacy of politically engaged theatre. In the past, she has worked with the Indian Cultural Forum, a New Delhi- based organisation that platforms local and international debates on politics and culture. Her current research explores cultural heritage and performance practices within the workers’ cooperative movement in Kerala.
Mentor
Heike Roms
Heike Roms is Professor in theatre and performance at the University of Exeter. She has an interest in collaborative research practices and has worked extensively with oral history methodologies in her projects. Her current work focuses on the involvement of children in art and activism in the 1960s.
Advisory Board
L.M. Bogad
L.M.Bogad, (Guggenheim Fellow, Creative Work Fund Artist, California Arts Council Creative Corps Artist); www.lmbogad.com) is a writer/performer specializing in humor, imagination, and theatrics in progressive social movements. He is professor of political performance at U.C. Davis, and author of the books Tactical Performance: The Theory and Practice of Serious Play, Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements, and Performing Truth: Works of Radical Memory for Times of Social Amnesia, and scripts including ECONOMUSIC, HAYMARKET, SANTIAGO 9/11/1973, COINTELSHOW, and TAHRIR. He is creator/host of the podcast, THE PLAGUE, and the Creator and Artistic Director of Delivering Democracy, a troupe of dancing mailboxes and ballot boxes, which entertained and informed voters in 2020 in the “battleground state” of Pennsylvania. Bogad has innovated playful interventions, street theatre, and mediagenic pranks with social movement organizations for 25 years, performing and leading workshops internationally in twenty countries, from Chile to Finland, from New Zealand to Egypt (during the first phase of the 2011 Revolution), on picket lines, in squatted buildings, and in major museums and theatres. He is a Cabinet Member and WPA Artist with the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, alumnus of the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab, and cofounder of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army. Arts and Controversy Fellow, Carnegie Mellon University, Humanities and Political Conflict Fellow, Arizona State; Arts and Publics Fellow, Northwestern University, and Charlotte Newcombe Fellow, Institute for Citizens and Scholars.
Gavin Grindon
Gavin Grindon is a Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Essex, whose work focuses on art, design and aesthetics in activism and social movements. He has curated and co-curated a number of exhibitions on this area, including Disobedient Objects (2014-15, V&A); Cruel Designs at Banksy’s Dismaland and the museum at the Walled Off Hotel (2015, 2017-present); The Museum of Neoliberalism (London, 2019-present) and Werbepause: The Art of Subvertising (Kunstraum Kreuzberg, 2022). He has recently published on art and protest in Social Text; The Oxford Art Journal; Art History and elsewhere.
Claudiana Nogueira de Alencar
Claudiana Nogueira de Alencar is a scenopoet and researcher at the Center for Culture, City and Language at the State University of Ceará (UECE) and researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPQ-BRAZIL). She is a professor at the Graduate Program in Applied Linguistics and at the Master’s in Education and Teaching, in the line of research on Critical Education, Work and Social Movements. Also she is a teacher of the Education Program in Areas of Agrarian Reform (PRONERA-MST) of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST). Claudiana coordinates the project entitled Viva a Palavra – Grammars of resistance in the art and culture of the outskirts of Fortaleza and organizes scenopoetry and popular education meetings as a form of resistance by popular movements in Brazil.
Developer
Richard Holding
Richard creates web resources for Digital Humanities research projects. His skills include the development of custom mapping solutions using the Leaflet JavaScript library, the creation of websites for managing and displaying digital collections using Omeka and eXist-db, and the design of websites and blogs in WordPress. Richard also advises academics and professional services staff on Digital Humanities aspects of bid writing for funders including the AHRC, identifying appropriate technologies and contributing details of development requirements for Data Management Plans.