Make IETM Rijeka
IETM Rijeka is your Meeting and need your contribution.
What would you like to dicuss in relation to the theme of "audiences"? What can you take from Hull to Rijeka?
Topics, speakers, workshop methodologies, extra activities, etc. share all your ideas for an exciting meeting.
I would like to propose a discussion at the next plenary on the theme of Consent Culture.
This evolves from the provocation I offered at Newsround in Munich (transcript here http://irregulararts.com/irregularities/building-consent-culture/ ) and the work I’ve been doing since and am continuing to do, as well as conversations I’ve had with other IETM members in Munich and Hull.
The theme explores how we as artists/creatives/organisations navigate the personal and political:
- how consent-aware are we when we interact with and engage with audiences and participants?
- how is consent part of the way we work with our colleagues and in organisations?
- as individuals and artists, how ‘political’ is our work?
- how do arts and activism interface?
In our post #metoo world, new divisions have emerged. Progress has fostered backlash as we attempt to make sense of our gender identities and power structures. Patriarchy is reinventing itself - and it is, at it’s core, a system based on entitlement culture. We are living in times where extremism is flourishing and binary/oppositional battle lines are continually drawn - new ways of ‘othering’ emerge, across politics, race, ability, gender, sexualities, religions and faiths and even within movements like feminism. In this context it is interesting to consider how the performing arts can challenge the prevailing culture to foster ’togethering’ instead of ‘bothering’. I propose a session where we explore how we can model or present alternative ideas and communities, and work together towards building a culture of consent, and consensus.
Through my R&D work I have collaborated with a range of artists, as well as hosting discussions with sex workers, parents, feminists, survivors of abuse, women and girls groups, LGBTQ+ groups and more about how we navigate ‘consent’ - in the context of our most intimate sexual relationships and in the context of our other social interactions. I have founded the principle of an ‘International Day of Consent’ and started an activist platform at consentculture.co.uk (which will be developing further over the coming months).
These ideas have inspired useful conversations with other IETM members and would connect well, I think, with the audience/engagement themes at the next plenary in Croatia.
Hi Jenny,
thank you for your suggestion. It sounds interesting and I would like to discuss it further with you and get a clear idea of the content and format such a session could have. Please send me a mail (victor.mayot@ietm.org) and advise me about your availabilities.
Hi - on the theme of audiences, Unlimited Theatre completed a project last year around small scale touring and local audience engagement with venues. We produced an evaluatiion report and a producer's 'toolkit' document which outlined practical approaches to making it work on the ground.
I wrote an article for the UK publication Arts Professional - more about the project here
https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/engaging-audiences-tour
I'd be very happy to present this case study as part of a panel, workshop or discussion group on audience engagement if thyat would fit?
Hi Tessa,
I would be curious to read the evaluation report and the toolkit.
Along with the local partners and IETM advisors, we will be developing the programme in the following weeks, and if your input fits the topic of a specific session, I will not miss to contact you.
Hi Victor
The report and toolkit are available here : https://issuu.com/untheatre
They are both titled The Together project
I could talk more widely about how we have used this learning to engage audiences in dialogiues around subsequent productions, particularly the science based shows of Unlimited Theatre's.
Tessa