Sites of Transformation: Applied and Socially Engaged Scenography in Rural Landscapes

Review “In Sites of Transformation artist-scholar Louise Ann Wilson introduces us to the innovative concept and practice of socially engaged and applied scenography, walking us through her scenographic-led work. In a highly original triangulation of place (from mountains, to beaches, to caves), challenging life-event (from bereavement, to involuntary childlessness, to immobility), and participant, Wilson reveals the ways in which 'sited' scenography can foster powerful and transformative acts of re-imaging and reimagining. This scenography with purpose is rigorously thoughtful and creative, emplacing hope in difficult times.” ―Deirdre Heddon, Professor of Theatre Studies, University of Glasgow, UK Product Description In this book practitioner and researcher Louise Ann Wilson examines the expanding field of socially engaged scenography and promotes the development of scenography as a distinctive type of applied art and performance practice that seeks tangible, therapeutic, and transformative real-world outcomes. It is what Christopher Baugh calls 'scenography with purpose'.Using case studies drawn from the body of site-specific walking-performances she has created in the UK since 2011, Wilson demonstrates how she uses scenography to emplace challenging, marginalizing or 'missing' life-events into rural landscapes – creating a site of transformation – in which participants can reflect upon, re-image and re-imagine their relationship to their circumstances. Her work has addressed terminal illness and bereavement, infertility and childlessness by circumstance, and (im)mobility and memory. These works have been created on mountains, in caves, along coastlines and over beaches. Each case-study is supported by evidential material demonstrating the effects and outcomes of the performance being discussed.The book reveals Wilson's creative methodology, her application of three distinct strands of transdisciplinary research into the site/landscape, the subject/life-event, and with the people/participants affected by it. She explains the 7 'scenographic' principles she has developed, and which apply theories and aesthetics relating to land/scape art and walking and performance practices from Early Romanticism to the present day. They are underpinned by the concept of the feminine 'material' sublime, and informed by the attentive, autotopographic, therapeutic and highly scenographic use of walking and landscape found in the work of Dorothy Wordsworth and her female contemporaries. Case studies include Fissure (2011), Ghost Bird (2012), The Gathering (2014), Warnscale (2015), Mulliontide (2016), Dorothy's Room (2018) and Women's Walks to Remember: 'With memory I was there' (2018-2019). About the Author Louise Ann Wilson is a transdisciplinary scenographer, performance maker and researcher. She is the Artistic Director of the Louise Ann Wilson Company and a visiting lecturer at several UK universities.Scott Palmer is Associate Professor in Performance Design and Director of Student Education in the School of Performance & Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, UK. He is the co-editor with Joslin McKinney of Scenography Expanded: An Introduction to Contemporary Performance Design and with Katherine Graham and Kelli Zezulka of Contemporary Performance Lighting: Experience, Creativity and Meaning.Joslin McKinney is Associate Professor in Scenography, Deputy Head of School and Programme Manager for the postgraduate course in Performance Design in the School of Performance & Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds, UK.Stephen A. Di Benedetto is Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre Michigan State University, USA. He is Associate Editor (Drama) for ASAP/ Journal and Associate Editor for Scene . His books include The Provocation of the Senses in Contemporary Theatre (2010) and An Introduction to Theatre Design (2012).