Exploring how people make meaning out of their experiences with participation and research
I am a performance studies researcher, educator and maker who explores participation, agency and meaning-making processes. I’m interested in the reasons people have for taking part in events and projects (from theatre to research), how their experiences become meaningful for them, and how we can capture these meaningful experiences in a way that does justice to them.
My practice explores how to design and curate experiences that enable meaningful, two-way interactions and that scaffold moments for reflection, using strategies from participatory performance, games and experience design. Throughout my practice I explore what it means to extend respectful invitations for participation that enable audiences to decide exactly how they wish to participate and investigate how artists and audiences can co-create meaning. My work also examines the systems and structures we live within, especially the agencies they afford. This results in a better understanding of participant’s meaning-making processes and how they ascribe value to their experiences.
My research takes an interdisciplinary and multi-modal approach; to enable an understanding of participation that incorporates multiple perspectives by combining theoretical, practice-based and audience research methodologies. My interdisciplinary work on research impact and engagement highlights the contribution that Performance Studies can make to other research disciplines and impact practices.
I work as the Impact Research Fellow at Bath Spa University and am currently working on a project about Emergent Value, funded through an AHRC Research, Development and Engagement Fellowship, which examines the unexpected value of arts experiences. The project will reconceptualise evaluation as a process that is meaningful for both participants and those evaluating, by using creative strategies, which will enable the capturing of richer experiential data. Find out more about the Emergent Value project here.
