Hello Stranger East Midlands (phase 1) Workshop-National Exhibition of UK Performance Design 2019-2023

The Hello Stranger East Midlands Workshop brought into the Main Stage of Derby Theatre a number of discarded materials (old fabrics, discarded wool, carboard tubes, plastic bottles, paper cups etc.) and invited designers and theatre practitioners from the region to co-create a dwelling using the materials on offer, while at the same time discussing the performance design landscape in the East Midlands. The conversation was curated to happen while the dwelling was being built and it was guided by a set of questions centred on a number of topics: the future of performance design; performance and spatial design in the region; design for the community; opportunities for local designers; designers' environmental responsibility; design research; and ways in which design can enhance accessibility and inclusivity.
During the workshop the conversations were recorded and I (researcher) wrote down words that stood out to me from the topics of the conversation. These words were used during the second day of the workshop to prompt written responses by the participants. The words and the responses were then placed inside a large piñata which was smashed by the group. The words and responses that fell on the floor were used by the group to create a collective manifesto on the future of performance design in the UK. For curating this two-day conversational environment, I employed my method of the ‘scenographic contraption’ (PENNA 2013; 2017; 2023) which uses error –understood here as a mismatch of expectations–, exposure of process, and inefficient aesthetics for generating playful relational actions between materials, space, and audiences. The notion of ‘contraption’ does not suggest a straightforward approach to problem solving. Rather, problem solving is achieved through a continual process of working with others in communion by inventing, reflecting, talking, opposing, playing, observing and so forth. A contraption does not guarantee a final product, and therefore a generation of different contraptions may occur along the way. The workshop was therefore designed by orchestrating various possibilities for participation and interaction. For example, what the participants were making was live-fed to a screen in the space so that each member of the group was able to have an overview of what was being built and, in turn, this affected, to an extent, what they made. A number of other such strategies were employed (for more information please refer to the related outputs below).
The design of the workshop therefore offered various entry points for participation and conversation and, simultaneously, an overview of what was being created collectively by its members. Through a series of playful participatory invitations that embraced error, exposure of process and inefficient aesthetics, the East Midlands curatorial concept understands the experience of scenography as contraption, a process that prioritises ingenuity and inventive playfulness over effectiveness, for the orchestration of meaningful conversations. It also understands thinking as a process that happens not as an individual activity but as one that takes place within socio-cultural and material situations, and that is inextricably integrated with perception and action.

Phase 1
Venue: Derby Theatre
Higher Education Partners: University of Derby with Nottingham Trent University