The research project evolved from the research partners’ common interest in the figure of waste and wastelands of various kinds as memoryscapes of communities to come in the wake of the present day ecological and economic crises. Their general understanding of waste is rooted in similar theoretical contexts that emphasise the relevance of the dissolution of existing social ties which creates potentials for redefining communities as more-than-human collectives striving to survive on the ruins of the capitalist world. Based on this assumption, the project partners want to introduce a shift in the common perspective on waste and wastelands by focusing primarily on their performative potential to create new forms of commonalities. It is our contention that we will not be able to develop new performative forms of commonality and social change, unless the narrow understanding of theatre and performance as artistic acts and the aesthetic framework of interpretation of life worlds and cultures are not overcome. It is precisely the impact of the diverse agents (humans and more-than-humans, artefacts, resources, organic remnants, technological remains, viruses etc.) that may facilitate the much-needed shift in research perspective. That is why bringing out the agency of these more-than-human entanglements in contemporary performative arts requires new theoretical and practical approaches, in which commemoration combines close description with speculative fabulation. The research project intends to offer these new approaches by focusing on the ways in which waste are performed nowadays.
The main outcome of this project is twofold: a many-authored book, edited by Małgorzata Sugiera and Dorota Sajewska, and a bilateral research project under the multilateral Weave Programme (Weave-UNISONO call).
Prof. Małgorzata Sugiera
Jagiellonian University Cracow (Poland) | Performativity Studies
Małgorzata Sugiera is Professor and Head of the Department for Performativity Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow and Head of the Department for Performativity Studies. She was a Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, DAAD, Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, the American Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the International Research Center “Interweaving Performance Cultures” at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research concentrates on performativity theories, environmental and decolonial studies, particularly in the context of the history of science. She published twelve scholarly books in Polish, translates scholarly books and co-edited several books in English and German, most recently with Dorota Sajewska for “Crisis and Communitas: Performative Concepts of Commonality in Arts and Politics” (Routledge 2022).
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Prof. Dorota Sajewska
Ruhr University Bochum | Theatre Studies
Prof. Dorota Sajewska
Ruhr University Bochum | Theatre Studies
Dorota Sajewska is professor at the Institute of Theatre Studies of Ruhr University Bochum since 2023. Her research focuses on performative arts and theories from a comparative perspective, considering local as well as global, European and non-European manifestations of social, cultural and aesthetic performances. Previously, she was assistant professor at the University of Zurich, where she was also a member of the Centre for Art and Cultural Theory. From 2018 to 2023, Dorota Sajewska led the SNSF-funded research project “Crisis and Communitas” on performative concepts of commonality in art and culture (www.crisisandcommunitas.com). Alongside her academic work, Dorota Sajewska has been involved in the international theatre and arts scene for over 20 years as dramaturge, programme coordinator for theatre festivals, and author of theatre and film scripts, lectures, and performative installations.
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