Testimony in Practice: Working with Stories of the Self and Others

Testimony in Practice develops and extends the cultural and social impact activities of the AHRC network "Culture and its Uses as Testimony" (2016-18). This network brought together researchers and practitioners working in a range of international and disciplinary contexts to explore if and how testimony mediated in and through different cultural forms might foster reconciliation and a sense of symbolic justice in post-conflict societies. The network's findings include the principle that all testimony is produced through culture, broadly understood to include artefacts (e.g., film, literature) and institutions (e.g., education, the law). The network further highlighted the necessity of focussing on the impact of different kinds of mediation on the production and reception of testimony.

An unforeseen pathway to impact resulting from that network was the decision by three network members, Eugenio Szwarcer and Carles Fernandez Giua of the Catalan theatre company La Conquesta del Pol Sud, and the Romanian and German novelist Carmen-Francesca Banciu to produce a collaborative documentary theatre performance. The play is based on Banciu's life as a dissident author in communist Romania and titled *Bucharest*. This innovative production combines verbatim and literary forms of presenting the self to highlight issues of authenticity, voice and power. Testimony in Practice brings *Bucharest* to Birmingham and ensures that the potential impact of this collaboration is fully realised. It does this by engaging new communities and audiences through a series of workshops, a testimonies campaign, and an intermedial exhibition. It will have impact in four areas: cultural production, social well-being, public understanding and economic impact.

The project responds to needs expressed by two different non-academic communities:
- a need for greater sharing of research and practice in the ethics and methods of using testimony in artistic production
- a need for increased public understanding and recognition of the life stories of Central and Eastern Europeans (CEEs) living in the UK

It is divided into two interlinked strands which address these different needs: Creative and Social.
1. The Creative strand engages cultural practitioners with the innovative approach and collaborative method used in *Bucharest*. It does this through the performance of the play at the Birmingham European Festival (attended by theatre practitioners from across Europe), a practitioners workshop, an open-access "Making Of" film and guide, two creative writing workshops on "Writing the self", and a reflective journal article.
2. The Social strand is inspired by the life-story approach of La Conquesta and Banciu and engages expatriate communities, schools and the local public with the subject of the play: the history of communism, the revolutions of 1989 and the experiences of Central and Eastern European migrants. In co-operation with our partners, the Polish Expats Association, the Central and Eastern European Arts Space, Centrala, and the Romanian Cultural Institute, we launch an online campaign to gather the life stories of CEEs living in the UK. The testimonies form the basis of an interactive and intermedial exhibition displayed in Birmingham and London and two schools workshops, in which pupils create their own artistic responses to the material.

The launch of the project in 2019 is particularly timely as Europeans commemorate the end of division and the triumph of liberal democracy over communism. And yet these anniversaries come at a time of great turbulence for a continent that seems ever more divided. Testimony in Practice emerges from this context and directly addresses it. It stages the possibility that culture can provide opportunities for marginalised groups to voice their life experiences and to have these recognised and heard by diverse audiences, thereby fostering a greater sense of social recognition and community cohesion.

The principal beneficiaries of this project are: cultural practitioners; Central and Eastern Europeans (CEEs) living in the UK and groups and organisations that represent them; school pupils in Birmingham and London; the general public attending theatre performances or visiting the interactive and intermedial exhibition. These groups will benefit from four kinds of impact:

(1) Cultural production
At the core of the project is exchange between researchers and cultural practitioners around the use of testimony in different artistic media. The original research highlighted the ways in which practitioners approach questions of appropriation, empathy and mediation in diverse ways and with diverse impacts on witnesses and audiences. This demonstrated in turn the potential for innovation through bringing together different media forms. This collaborative method is being explored in the documentary theatre production, *Bucharest* - an unintended outcome of the original research - which combines on-stage witnessing with literary writing. The proposed activities bring the outcomes of this innovation to a broader community of practitioners through staging the performance at an international theatre festival, an open-access "Making Of" film and guide for practitioners, a workshop targeted at theatre professionals and two creative writing workshops for emerging authors. The project also explores a second collaborative approach through the production of an exhibition of testimonies combining installation and sound art. Participation in the project will have a transformative effect on the artists involved in terms of their approach to producing and using testimony. It will promote reflection among this user community around ethical and methodological questions in this context and foster future collaborative activity between artists working with testimony in different media.

(2) Social well-being
Since the June 2016 referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, CEEs living in the UK have reported an increase in hate crime and a sense of marginalisation. With the support of our project partners, Centrala, the Polish Expats Association and the Romanian Cultural Institute, Testimony in Practice addresses this through the launch of a campaign to collect and exhibit (online and through installation and sound art) the testimonies of these communities. The aim is to improve social well-being by fostering an increase in social recognition of the life experiences of the witnessing group. The original research highlighted the benefit for marginalised groups of the opportunity to give voice to their life stories and to have these heard and recognised by a wider community. Cultural products, such as theatre and art, can mediate these life stories in a way that allows the creation of distance for the witness, yet creates the possibility of an empathetic and affective response on the part of visitors and audiences.

(3) Public understanding
Related to the impact on social well-being, the project increases understanding of the histories of Central and Eastern European countries in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and how these histories relate to contemporary politics. This is especially important in 2019, as Europe marks the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the (beginning of the) end of communism, and yet faces a present in which the continent appears increasingly divided. An increase in knowledge and reflection on Europe's past and present is achieved through the theatre performance, testimonies exhibition and two schools' workshops.

(4) Economic Impact
The artists directly involved in the theatre performance and art installation will benefit economically from the attention brought to their work by the project, as this will likely result in future commissions and/or increased sales revenue.