Speaker:
Professor James Thompson (University of Manchester)

This event is presented in association with the Institute for Social Impact Research in the Performing Arts

In this seminar, James Thompson speaks about his work in the field of applied theatre – from work in war and disaster zones, to current work on what he calls ‘care aesthetics’. He will outline some of the learning from the In Place of War project that researched and developed arts programmes in war and disaster zones, and explain how this contributed to his book Performance Affects that set out an argument for the importance of the affective elements of community-based arts practices.

More recently, Professor Thompson has extended this work into a focus on contexts and practices of care. He will outline the case for care to be understood as an aesthetic practice – embodied, sensory and crafted – and the implications of thinking about careful art and artful care for arts, and care workers today. This will pay particular attention to the role of the arts in our contemporary Covid-related crisis in care.