Social Distancing and Reimagining City Life: Performative strategies and practices for response and recovery in and beyond lockdown
Lead Research Organisation:
Northumbria University
Department Name: Fac of Arts, Design and Social Sciences
Abstract
COVID-19 has transformed city life: we now urgently need to develop imaginative ideas and creative practices to understand and address its impact on how we live and work in cities. Performance theory and practice offer innovative, proven, yet under-explored means to achieve this. This project will provide new models for understanding and practising city life, helping people cope with social distancing, both practically and emotionally.
Working with strategic decision-makers in Bristol, Glasgow and Newcastle City Councils (confirmed), we will investigate everyday innovations (social performances) and artistic interventions (aesthetic performances), to understand how performance can reimagine and facilitate city life in times of social distancing, and how performance theory and analysis might contribute to more nuanced, creative and sustainable strategies and practices for response and recovery across five urgent areas: social cohesion, new behaviours, community resilience, perceptions of environment, and crisis management.
Working with artists, arts venues and officers from hazard mitigation, sustainability and resilience, the project will lead to new understandings of the place and function of performance, broker creative thinking on response and recovery, and make strategic recommendations for arts strategy, pandemic planning and hazard mitigation policy. Impacts will be scaled, primarily, through Core Cities, a network of eleven UK cities, and arts strategy organisations.
This project builds on the investigators' recent work in New Orleans, which led the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness to fundamentally change their hazard mitigation policy and practice, and to significant changes in strategies for major arts organisations (www.performingcityresilience.com)
Working with strategic decision-makers in Bristol, Glasgow and Newcastle City Councils (confirmed), we will investigate everyday innovations (social performances) and artistic interventions (aesthetic performances), to understand how performance can reimagine and facilitate city life in times of social distancing, and how performance theory and analysis might contribute to more nuanced, creative and sustainable strategies and practices for response and recovery across five urgent areas: social cohesion, new behaviours, community resilience, perceptions of environment, and crisis management.
Working with artists, arts venues and officers from hazard mitigation, sustainability and resilience, the project will lead to new understandings of the place and function of performance, broker creative thinking on response and recovery, and make strategic recommendations for arts strategy, pandemic planning and hazard mitigation policy. Impacts will be scaled, primarily, through Core Cities, a network of eleven UK cities, and arts strategy organisations.
This project builds on the investigators' recent work in New Orleans, which led the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness to fundamentally change their hazard mitigation policy and practice, and to significant changes in strategies for major arts organisations (www.performingcityresilience.com)
Publications
Andrews, S
(2021)
Performance can be vital to emergency preparedness
in Crisis Response Journal
Andrews, S
(2021)
Project Update, September 2021
Andrews, S
(2022)
Reimagining City Life: Performance Responses to COVID-19
Andrews, S
(2021)
The art and performance of city strategy in a pandemic
Andrews, S
(2022)
Reconnecting: New Orleans, February 2022
Andrews, S
(2021)
Invitations to Innovate
Andrews, S
(2021)
Masks
Andrews, S.
(2021)
Performance as City Pandemic Response: 'Invitations to Innovate'
Andrews, S.
(2022)
A Toolkit of Creative Strategies for Personal Debriefing
Duggan, P
(2022)
Reflections on Travelling
| Description | - Emergency planning is a creative practice - it regularly involves individuals finding new ways of thinking and working through means of understanding and responding to events/crises. This is not widely understood and before this project, there were no means of embedding this perspective and creative practices/approaches in EP - our work has revealed the importance of this approach (see Impact). - Emergency planning needs to be a creative practice. Specific conventional practices, especially of public messaging have limited effectiveness. - Emergency planners have been engaged in addressed sustained, multiple and intersecting challenges in recent years (Covid, storms, public protest, cost of living). This has posed particular challenges for early career practitioners. - There are no identified means of personal debriefing for individuals and teams in emergency planning or the emergency services. Our project helped to address this and follow-up work in this territory continues. - Creative approaches to debriefing can be of value in navigating the separation between work and life, and managing the daily experience of working in a high-pressure environment. - Arts venues offer strategic engagements with communities that can be beneficial to sustaining social distancing and communicating its importance at city level; emergency planning processes, policy and practice can account for this in pandemic planning and physical distancing strategy. - Through the pandemic, individual artists, organisations and networks have reimagined their role and practices in ways that can may be usefully disseminated nationally as a list of arts workers with experience of engaging in early crisis response. - Arts organisations are often engaged in both individual interventions and sustained programming practices. They can address pressing challenges and attend to longform issues. - Artists, arts organisations and culture leaders know their audiences and communities in nuanced, complex and trusted ways. This affords connections and relationships not always available to municipal structures. - Locally situated arts practices reveal new ways of understanding and reimagining city life during and 'post-' pandemic; this work can be advantageous in sustaining social distancing, communicating with 'hard to reach' communities and enlivening city spaces in safe, engaging ways. - 'Signs don't work' but performative interventions in city spaces can. Artists can make strategic, local interventions into city spaces that enable communities to practice social distancing in more sustainable and sustained ways. - In engaging the public, playful approaches to safely practising a city can provide compelling means of addressing risks in creative, embodied ways. - Local arts networks provide efficient and facilitated means of engaging with arts workers in a city, including individual artists and organisations of all scales. This allows for swift reflection and action in response to crisis situations, making such networks rich bodies of practitioners/organisations who are directly engaged in addressing city challenges before, during and after an emergency or crisis. - Crucially, city council emergency planning policy/strategy does not (generally) join up with cultural strategies, missing an opportunity for more nuanced understandings of places in emergency contexts. At the same time, emergency planners are open to and actively seeking out opportunities for interdisciplinary modes of working and strategy development. |
| Exploitation Route | We are in ongoing conversations with key stakeholders, including the EPS, both to build on the use of existing findings, and develop new means of addressing significant and ongoing UK resilience challenges. The findings have particular applicability for academics and professionals in emergency planning as they offer new means to think through how we engage with arts and culture in planning for and responding to emergency situations (in this case, especially a pandemic). This is a novel approach that may yield new ways of thinking and practicing. Moreover, the research has relevance for those working in cultural policy at local, regional and national levels insofar as it reveals the fundamental importance of arts and culture to post-Covid recovery. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Education,Energy,Environment,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Other |
| URL | https://performingcityresilience.com/publications/ |
| Description | 1) Our findings led the Emergency Planning Society (EPS) to make 'key changes that will be of significant benefit to the Society's membership, and to our understandings of what good emergency planning looks like.' (Barr, Interim Chair, EPS). The EPS is the UK's leading membership body for professionals working or studying in disaster management, emergency response and resilience. The changes are: A) Our findings on managing individual and team experience of emergency planning led the EPS to identify a 'critical gap in the ways resilience [professionals] address approaches to coping with workplaces stresses in emergency planning'. Before our project, there was no focus on individual and team debriefing strategy, rather debriefing focused on organisational and systems debriefing (Ibid). In consultation with the EPS, we developed and delivered a model of personal debriefing for emergency planners. This has been helpful in the following ways: i) EPS members have used our publication, A Toolkit of Creative Strategies for Personal Debriefing, to begin debriefing during and after situations. ii) EPS members have actively engaged in our ongoing series of online workshops to explore the Creative Strategies Toolkit (2 workshops delivered, further dates for future workshops are being agreed at the point of this submission [March 2023]). B) Our findings on intersections between arts and resilience practices led the EPS to understand the importance of creativity and creative strategies in Emergency Planning and embed creativity in its core competencies framework: 'So important is this contribution that it has been integrated into our recently updated core competencies framework." (Jeannie Barr, Interim Chair EPS, 2022). C) Our findings on situated reflection led the EPS to recognise that creative practice 'impacts on how we might help support our members to develop their professional practice, which will have significant wider societal benefits.' i) Participants at an online EPS 'Huddle' (a roundtable CPD event), that focused on our findings, reported: "One of the best huddles we have had since we started them. Was AMAZING" (Nathan Hazlehurst, EPRR Manager at NHS Frimley Integrated Care Board, 2022). 2) In Cumbria, our action-research with the Resilience Unit led colleagues to rethink their public engagement practice.: You have 'have enabled members of our Unit to reflect on our existing practices of public engagement and both explore and develop new approaches and practices for the future. Of particular benefit, you have invited us to think in entirely new ways about the kinds of information we might need to share with the public, and ways we might improve both the form and content of our messages... Research emerging from your ongoing engagement with the City of New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (NOHSEP) has directly informed the development of our soon to be updated CBRNe Plan (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and explosive) which is entering a pre-review period.' (Ian Winchester, Senior Emergency Planning Officer, 2022) 3) For Bristol City Council, our work revealed 'valuable new "access routes" into communities to talk about risk and resilience. Routes that leave behind the "dry", top down, traditional emergency planning approach and allow a more democratic conversation, driven by the communities and articulated through cultural, performative and artistic networks, organisations and the content of their outputs. Far more effective than a "Community Resilience Plan"!' (Jim Gillman, City Operational Planning and Response Manager, 2022) 4) For Northumberland County Council, our work brought coherence to the practise of emergency planning: 'performance methodologies provide what I think of as the interconnective tissue between what, on the surface, seem like disparate skills and activities' (Hinds). It also provided new approaches to pressing challenges: 'Performance can enable difficult conversations and engender a new approach to how we work. It reinforces the need for diverse voices and provides new methods to try something different, to challenge and to not be afraid to be creative." (Helen Hinds, Business Resilience and Emergency Planning Lead, 2022) 5) In London Borough of Newham (LBN), our work has helped the Council strategise for arts and culture as means of 'post'-Covid recovery: our 'research proved insightful in expanding an approach to the cultural strategy, particularly in understanding the role of arts and cultural activity in pandemic recovery.' (Chris Horton, Area Programme Manager LBN, 2022) 6) In Bristol, our conversation-based research methodology helped MAYK (curators of MAYFEST, Bristol's biennial international theatre festival) reflect on and curate their arts practice through the pandemic, enabling new 'approaches to developing work over the past year and into next year - and particularly around liveness and place and intimacy and how those things are so central to our practice. (Matthew Austin, Co-Director MAYK, 2021). 7) In North Tyneside, our work led to new understandings of culture in the council: It triggered new conversations within the Authority about the positioning of culture as a service area and also how it should be embedded in the Council's approach to priorities around the climate change, equalities, community engagement and place agendas. '[Y]our project have helped us shape the emerging priorities within our cultural strategy, particularly with regard to the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic and the process of community recovery, the significance of public space, how it is used and how public confidence can be restored (all of which are addressed in your research). The insights you provide from locations often more challenging than ours has certainly helped re-align some of our thinking and will undoubtedly inform our policy discussions going forward.' (Steve Bishop, Head of Culture, North Tyneside Council, 2022) 8) In policy development, Prof. Simon Shepherd cited our research in his response as an expert witness to a Parliamentary committee addressing ''cultural placemaking and the levelling-up agenda'. 9) In New Orleans, our ongoing research helped the City to understand the importance of leveraging the city's 'cultural vernacular' as a means of pandemic response. Their research encouraged the city to recognise the need to 'lift up the work' of cultural practitioners in New Orleans as a means of communicating Covid-19 public health messages 'with citizens in terms they could understand'. (Austin Feldbaum, Hazard Mitigation Administrator at City of New Orleans, 2022) Through these specific contributions, our work has provided professional practitioners with new methods of addressing, reflecting on and responding to complex and intersecting resilience challenges. See also: https://newsroom.northumbria.ac.uk/pressreleases/arts-research-inspires-new-approaches-to-emergency-planning-3212412 [MARCH 2022 RESEARCH FISH SUBMISSION] We are currently setting up a series of impact focused activities with project partners and national/international organisations, including the Emergency Planning Society and resilience professionals in the Core Cities network. As a result, we anticipate that the next phase of the project will be the main driver of impact. However, to date we have: - Influenced Head of Resilience's (Northumberland CC) processes and practices for incident debriefing (esp. post-Covid) with Council teams and personally. - Offered a continuous point of contact for colleagues in resilience, demonstrating the value of an ongoing reflective process for professional development as crises emerge and are then 'recovered' from (Bristol and Northumbria councils). - Been asked to contribute research findings to emerging covid social distancing comms strategy (North East LRF7 and Bristol CC: workshops associated with this request are to be conducted in the next phase of work). - Seen our research findings quoted in London Borough Newham's Cultural Strategy in relation to the importance and strategic value of arts/culture to post-Covid recovery, understandings of place and community. - Revealed the ways that innovative approaches to messaging that emerge from arts practices can reveal new means of communication that can significantly help with vaccine uptake (New Orleans). Workshops and impact events planned in the next six months will significantly bolster impact for the project and we look forward to reporting these in the next round. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Education,Energy,Environment,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Other |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | Changes to: Emergency Planning Society Core Competencies Framework |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or improved professional practice |
| Impact | Please see Impact Statements from Emergency Planning Society; Cumbria County Council; North Tyneside Council; Northumberland County Council; Newham Council; Bristol City Council: https://performingcityresilience.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Impact-Statements_combined.pdf |
| URL | https://performingcityresilience.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Impact-Statements_combined.pdf |
| Description | Citation in London Borough Newham's Cultural Strategy |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| Impact | Impact statement from Chris Horton, Area Programme Manager, London Borough of Newham (see: https://performingcityresilience.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Impact-Statements_combined.pdf): "Newham Council procured and worked in conjunction with Publica Consultants on a strategy entitled Building Newham's Creave Future (2022 - 2037) which completed in Spring 2022. I am reliably informed by the commissioned team that, in the process of developing our cultural strategy, Building Newham's Creative Future (2022 - 2037), the lead consultants, Publica, were introduced to Andrews and Duggan's research project 'Social Distancing and Reimagining City Life', in particular to their research report Performance as City Pandemic Response: Invitations to Innovate (September 2021). Publica have confirmed that the research proved insightful in expanding an approach to the cultural strategy, particularly in understanding the role of arts and cultural activity in pandemic recovery. This helped Publica, working with the Council, make a broader value-case for culture in the borough as intrinsically linked to health and economic vibrancy. Moreover, I am informed that Andrews and Duggan's work helped Publica to evidence that there is value in 'working with cultural and arts organisations to creatively reimagine engagement with communities' (p.12) in, and emerging from the pandemic. Investment in culture can be a key pillar of Newham's Covid-19 recovery, recognising the potential value of the creative and cultural sectors to the local economy and the wider benefits that could be unlocked in terms of skills building, the growth of specialist local economies, health, wellbeing and happiness (p.100). Publica have confirmed that Andrews and Duggan's research informed the underpinning thinking of the strategy. Publica have agreed that, particular, their research highlighted the need to recognise Covid-19 as an ongoing challenge as we implement the new strategy over the next 15 years, and that arts and culture will play a critically important, strategic role in addressing that challenge. Building Newham's Creative Future will be the cornerstone of London Borough of Newham's approach to culture and the arts, informing a wider strategic vision for the borough working across all departments and services but also working in strong partnership with residents and community based groups. We are assured by Publica that Andrews and Duggan's research has directly influenced the development of public policy that will have a substantial, material, and long-term impact on the cultural environment of the Borough, on the wellbeing of our c. 355,266 population (2020 MYE), and the ways we understand the importance and develop of future policy for culture, creative, and the arts in Newham." |
| URL | https://www.newham.gov.uk/downloads/file/4311/building-newham-s-creative-future-cultural-strategy-an... |
| Description | DCMS Reimagining where we live consultation |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | https://committees.parliament.uk/work/1744/reimagining-where-we-live-cultural-placemaking-and-the-le... |
| Description | London Borough of Newham Local Plan |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| URL | https://www.newham.gov.uk/downloads/file/5486/newham-local-plan-december-2022-web-final |
| Description | National Resilience Strategy |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1001... |
| Description | New Orleans Vaccine Uptake Comms |
| Geographic Reach | North America |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or Improved professional practice |
| Impact | Research influenced creative approaches to vaccination hesitancy communication in New Orleans; specifically the deployment of cultural infrastructure as a means to communicate effectively with diverse and/or hard-to-engage groups across the city. The #SleevesUpNOLA campaign was successful in driving up vaccination rates to one of the highest per capita rates in the US; however, ee have only recently been made aware of this impact and are still gathering precise data on the reach and significance; we can report on this in due course. |
| Description | Brunel Arts and Humanities Department Research Funding |
| Amount | £3,298 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Brunel University London |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2022 |
| End | 11/2022 |
| Description | Brunel Arts and Humanities Department Research Funding |
| Amount | £1,300 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Brunel University London |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2023 |
| End | 06/2023 |
| Description | Brunel Public Engagement Fund |
| Amount | £1,950 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | Rethinking Resilience |
| Organisation | Brunel University London |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2023 |
| End | 06/2023 |
| Description | Internal Funding (Call 1 22/23, Theme: Knowledge Exchange and Impact) |
| Amount | £5,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Northumbria University |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2022 |
| End | 07/2023 |
| Description | Northumbria Arts QR Funding |
| Amount | £2,750 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Northumbria University |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2022 |
| End | 11/2022 |
| Title | Reimagining City Life: Performance Responses to Covid-19 |
| Description | This live data-set documents artistic and everyday performances both in the UK and internationally that responded to the pandemic in some way. It is a working document that can be added to by the public; the primary focus is on case study cities for our ongoing research on Reimagining City Life in the context of Covid-19. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | None yet; published March 2022 |
| URL | https://livenorthumbriaac-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal/w20034298_northumbria_ac_uk/Ed9aJNijFGFBq... |
| Description | Performance and Emergency Planning: Covid-19 and beyond |
| Organisation | Bristol City Council |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Academic findings relating to innovations in pandemic response, including: means to manage public space, vaccine hesitancy messaging, and social distancing practices. Revealing knowledge of arts practices that have engaged with the pandemic and means to understand this in relation to emergency planning/pandemic response at civic level. Advice on means to engage arts and cultural stakeholders and how to leverage their agility and networks to reach typically 'hard to reach' groups. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Ongoing conversation on the issues/challenges faced over time in relation to Covid-19 and its strategic management at city/regional level. Access to professional networks such as Emergency Planning Society and Core Cities. Introduction to informal networks of emergency planners, enabling conversation about our work nationally. Feedback on emerging findings of the project. |
| Impact | As we are currently entering the 'impact phase' of the project, we are now beginning to work with partners on publications and events to address live challenges that relate to Covid-19 and future pandemic planning. We will be able to report on the 'outputs and outcomes' of this work in the next report phase. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Performance and Emergency Planning: Covid-19 and beyond |
| Organisation | Newcastle City Council |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Academic findings relating to innovations in pandemic response, including: means to manage public space, vaccine hesitancy messaging, and social distancing practices. Revealing knowledge of arts practices that have engaged with the pandemic and means to understand this in relation to emergency planning/pandemic response at civic level. Advice on means to engage arts and cultural stakeholders and how to leverage their agility and networks to reach typically 'hard to reach' groups. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Ongoing conversation on the issues/challenges faced over time in relation to Covid-19 and its strategic management at city/regional level. Access to professional networks such as Emergency Planning Society and Core Cities. Introduction to informal networks of emergency planners, enabling conversation about our work nationally. Feedback on emerging findings of the project. |
| Impact | As we are currently entering the 'impact phase' of the project, we are now beginning to work with partners on publications and events to address live challenges that relate to Covid-19 and future pandemic planning. We will be able to report on the 'outputs and outcomes' of this work in the next report phase. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Performance and Emergency Planning: Covid-19 and beyond |
| Organisation | Northumberland County Council |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Academic findings relating to innovations in pandemic response, including: means to manage public space, vaccine hesitancy messaging, and social distancing practices. Revealing knowledge of arts practices that have engaged with the pandemic and means to understand this in relation to emergency planning/pandemic response at civic level. Advice on means to engage arts and cultural stakeholders and how to leverage their agility and networks to reach typically 'hard to reach' groups. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Ongoing conversation on the issues/challenges faced over time in relation to Covid-19 and its strategic management at city/regional level. Access to professional networks such as Emergency Planning Society and Core Cities. Introduction to informal networks of emergency planners, enabling conversation about our work nationally. Feedback on emerging findings of the project. |
| Impact | As we are currently entering the 'impact phase' of the project, we are now beginning to work with partners on publications and events to address live challenges that relate to Covid-19 and future pandemic planning. We will be able to report on the 'outputs and outcomes' of this work in the next report phase. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | A Creative Strategy for Personal Debriefing (two EPS workshops) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Two workshops delivered via the Emergency Planning Society for emergency planning and resilience professionals and policy makers. The work explored new means of 'personal debriefing' that emerged directly from the research of the project. Objectives: To facilitate a supportive and open discussion about participants methods and/or difficulties in transitioning from their work as emergency planners to their personal lives. This would include both during incidents and routine daily pressure. To identify simple practical tools to assist them To publish these in a toolkit. To benefit from and contribute to a research project of Stuart Andrews & Patrick Duggan To contribute to the EPS Strategy to support members. Outcome: - Revealed a critical gap in the ways we address approaches to coping with workplaces stresses in emergency planning, particularly through and as we emerge from Covid-19 (deemed particularly useful for early career professionals) - Need for a published toolkit of personal debriefing (published with EPS 2022) - Opened space for individuals to consider things from a different perspective, to use things like creative thinking as an approach to problem solving, that reduces fear of change and provides some too |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://performingcityresilience.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Impact-Statements_combined.pdf |
| Description | Creative debrief and the power of creative practice |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Invited talk at the Emergency Services Show considering the importance of creative practice in personal debriefing and to professional emergency planning practice more generally. This talk was part of a series of events in conjunction with the Emergency Planning Society. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | http://emergencyuk.com/ess-2022-programme/tbc-8 |
| Description | Emergency Planning Society 'Huddle' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 'Performative Strategies for Emergency Planning' was an invited presentation at an EPS Huddle (15 Emergency Planning Professionals from across the UK) to facilitate useful reflection on familiar practices, generate new means of response to current and future challenges, reveal local arts practice as productive means of crisis response, identify new areas for collaboration. Led to a series of workshops for the EPS and invitations to carry out bespoke events at other organisations nationally. Abstract for the session: Covid-19 has underlined the vital role arts practitioners play in identifying and responding to local and city challenges both creatively and at speed. Throughout the pandemic, artists, arts organisations and networks have been responding imaginatively to restrictions, rethinking familiar places and practices, and creating entirely new modes of engagement with local and city communities. In some contexts, this work comprises informal invitations and guidance, in others it involves sustained local leadership to directly address local needs that have not been met. Elsewhere, artistic programming has provided flexible, responsive means through which people can recognise and understand different experiences of Covid- 19, and thereby live with greater knowledge and understanding. The arts are rarely credited as offering a strategic contribution, and yet, internationally, there are established examples where the arts have been directly engaged in precisely this work as pandemic response. What is missing is a means of connecting such crisis-focused strategic arts responses to city emergency and resilience planning measures. In this huddle, Dr Stuart Andrews and Dr Patrick Duggan reflect on their ongoing project Social Distancing and Reimagining City Life: Performative strategies and practices for response and recovery in and beyond lockdown. In so doing, they will share findings, analysis and recommendations from field research in Bristol, Glasgow, Newcastle and New Orleans to argue that the arts, and performance in particular, should be considered vitally and strategically important in emergency planning for and responding to pandemics, and beyond. Dr Stuart Andrews is Research Lead in Theatre at Brunel University London; Dr Patrick Duggan is Associate Professor of Performance and Culture, and Head of Theatre and Performance at Northumbria University. Together, they co-direct Performing City Resilience, an international research project brokering understandings and connections between arts and emergency and resilience practitioners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Northumbria County Council Resilience Team |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Workshop with Northumbria County Council's Resilience Team: Title: Rethinking Civil Contingency: People, Places and Practices Workshop exploring "Ways of Surveying, Reflecting and Valuing your practices of Civil Contingency planning in Northumbria" with team of 6 resilience/civil contingency team. Objectives: To identify, reflect on and value individual perspectives on civil contingency planning in a new environment. To survey, reflect on and reimagine County Hall as a site for civil contingency Planning. To identify and reflect on perspectives and practices of emergency planning. To enable individual and collective conversation on professional practice. To generate specific actions for follow-up activity in future teamwork. Outcomes: - Confirmation for team that 'good resilience practice needs to be multi-disciplinary' - Identified that the 'usual suspects [disciplines] don't have all the answers' - Identified means of challenging assumptions and accepted ways of working - Developed new understandings and practices of working with emergency plans in Northumberland; particularly in terms of how the physical object of the plan needs to made memorable, usable and engaging. - Established that 'emergency planning is a form of performance' and that 'this research revealed the importance of performance as a missing element in [our Emergency Planning] thinking' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Presentation to professional practitioner incubation hub |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In this talk, Dr Stuart Andrews and Dr Patrick Duggan reflected on their ongoing project Social Distancing and Reimagining City Life: Performative strategies and practices for response and recovery in and beyond lockdown. They shared emerging findings, introduced their interim report and reflected on the ways in which the arts are vital to city responses to a pandemic. Approximately 15 people attended the event at the time of delivery, subsequently the presentation has been viewed more than 80 times via Watershed's YouTube channel. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/10985/the-art-and-performance-of-pandemic-response |
| Description | Reducing the Risk of Burnout: Creative Practices of Emergency Planning and Resilience |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Invited talk at the International Security Expo; part of a series of events with the Emergency Planning Society. This talk: - Introduced 'creative practice' as a critical, innovative strategy for personal debriefing; - Explored the risks of continued 'crisis mode' working and offers 'creative' means of addressing this; - Addressed the importance of 'creative practice' as a core competence of the emergency planner and resilience professional. The event served as the launch of 'A Toolkit of Creative Strategies for Personal Debriefing' published by the EPS as an outcome of the AHRC funded research. Impact: - Multiple follow-up conversations/emails from across policy and business - Interest in the Toolkit and underpinning research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.internationalsecurityexpo.com/international-security-expo-2022-seminars/key-elements-ris... |
| Description | The Art and Performance of Pandemic Response |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Pervasive Media talk reflecting on research findings concerning the ways in which the arts are vital to city responses to a pandemic. Abstract: Covid-19 has underlined the vital role arts practitioners play in identifying and responding to local and city challenges both creatively and at speed. Throughout the pandemic, artists, arts organisations and networks have been responding imaginatively to restrictions, rethinking familiar places and practices, and creating entirely new modes of engagement with local and city communities. In some contexts, this work comprises informal invitations and guidance, in others it involves sustained local leadership to directly address local needs that have not been met.Elsewhere, artistic programming has provided flexible, responsive means through which people can recognise and understand different experiences of Covid- 19, and thereby live with greater knowledge and understanding. The arts are rarely credited as offering a strategic contribution, and yet, internationally, there are established examples where the arts have been directly engaged in precisely this work as pandemic response. What is missing is a means of connecting such crisis-focused strategic arts responses to city emergency and resilience planning measures. In this talk, Dr Stuart Andrews and Dr Patrick Duggan will reflect on their ongoing project Social Distancing and Reimagining City Life: Performative strategies and practices for response and recovery in and beyond lockdown. In so doing, they will share emerging findings, introduce their interim report and reflect on the ways in which the arts are vital to city responses to a pandemic.Dr Stuart Andrews is Research Lead in Theatre at Brunel University London, Dr Patrick Duggan is Associate Professor of Performance and Culture, and Head of Theatre and Performance at Northumbria University. Together, they co-direct Performing City Resilience, an international research project brokering understandings and connections between arts and emergency and resilience practitioners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtaZwf37OUM |
| Description | The Culture Capita Exchange roundtable discussion |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This knowledge sharing session brought together researchers, arts practitioners and those in the broader sector to attempt to make joint sense of the pandemic and particularly the influence it has had on the performing arts. Specifically, we looked to consider how the sector can take the lessons learned and respond in and via future events. "Firstly, we will hear from recipients of UKRI Covid19 Rapid Response funding during the pandemic, as well as from UKRI itself. Secondly, we will share examples of good practice from practitioners and academics whose projects or performances were altered or even temporarily cancelled due to the circumstances of the pandemic. Attendees will be encouraged to be active participants and to also share their own experiences where possible. Speakers include: Dr Sharon Brookshaw, Portfolio Manager (Health), Health & Environment Team, UKRI Julia Haferkorn, Senior Lecturer in Music Business and Arts Management, Middlesex University Dr Patrick Duggan, Associate Professor of Performance and Culture, and Head of Theatre and Performance, Northumbria University Diana Squires, MSc graduate at City, University of London and Freelance Research Consultant on Resilience and Innovation in the Cultural Sector Anu Giri, Head of Business and Operations, BFI Festivals Professor Isabella Van Elferen, Professor of Music and Director of the Visconti Studio, Kingston University Ian Ross & Megan Saunders, Executive Director & Head of Learning and Participation, Jasmin Vardimon Company This session will be chaired by Prof Vida Midgelow, Middlesex University. This event is free, however advanced booking is essential. Academics and staff from TCCE member institutions are guaranteed a place (please use your institutional email to book in order to avoid confusion), other places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis so please book promptly to avoid disappointment." |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pandemic-and-performance-tickets-239037687157# |
| Description | Workshop with Cumbria County Council: COMAH Strategy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Control of Major Accident Hazards Strategy Workshop with Emergency Planning team at Cumbria County Council, and EP colleagues from Sellafield Limited. OBJECTIVES: Embed more imaginative practices in emergency planning Engage in greater risk taking Rethink conditions, systems and processes, and outcomes Opening up ideas and then focusing in on what's interesting to develop as achievable actions OUTCOMES: - Reflect on existing practices of public engagement - Develop new approaches and practices of COMAH communication strategies in Cumbria - Improve form and content of messaging - Changes to professional practices regarding planning and plan writing, esp. RE public messaging. - Informed the development of the CBRNe Plan (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://performingcityresilience.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Impact-Statements_combined.pdf |