CoastARTS: Coastlines as Zones of Ecocultural Crisis – Shaping Resilience through Transnational Performance-based Arts
CoastARTS treats the coastal areas of Europe and its former colonies as rich zones for analysing the convergence of ecological and cultural perspectives on crisis and its material manifestations. The project uses performing arts practice and research to develop methods and models that can be deployed across multiple disciplines to deepen understanding of the intricate links between historical crises and looming threats to the Earth. It thus lays ground for building resilience in communities and fostering adaptive responses to planetary change.
The archival and practice-led research of CoastARTS explores transhistorical, cross-cultural and transregional links to better understand what is life-giving in human and multispecies communities. A key aim is to retrieve neglected ecological knowledge from Indigenous and other marginalised peoples. Working with museums, festivals, arts centres, theatre-makers and coastal communities, we will develop exciting new approaches to understand how coasts act, and interact, as crisis zones in iconic and material terms. We ask how these spaces – as sites of disembarkation, inundation, invasion, erosion, division and contestation – can inform the imaginary construction of crises past, present and future. We view coastlines as sites threatened not only by the climate and biodiversity crisis but also by political contestation and discrimination as national borders are asserted to control migration flows into Europe.
CoastARTS is a comparative, multi-sited study proceeding in three broad phases (research and creative design, community-based practice, reflection and analysis), each lasting a year. It will produce new research, notably a book on how performing arts methods can be deployed in other disciplines. With cultural partners, we will also co-create performances, exhibitions and sustainable digital resources that will be accessible to all. The work will unfold collaboratively in Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Norway and the UK, serving as both an analytical window into coastal crises and a mode of collaborative action.
Keywords:
ecological arts, community-based action research, indigenous environmental knowledges, knowledge exchange in the blue humanities.
Consortium:
Project Leader: Helen Gilbert, Royal Holloway University of London, United Kingdom
Patrick Lonergan, University of Galway, Ireland
Neide Areia, Centre for Social Studies of University of Coimbra, Portugal
Emilia María Durán Almarza, University of Oviedo, Spain
Heli Aaltonen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Associate partners:
Anne Meek, Deputy Chairperson, Kultur og teaterverkstedet Fyret, Norway
Christine Plastow, Co-artistic Director, Theatre of the Gentle Furies, United Kingdom
Dara McGee, Stiúrthóir Ealaíne (Art Director), Áras Éanna, Inis Oírr, Ireland
Eithne Verling, Museum Director, Galway City Museum, Ireland
Helen Mears, Head of Curatorship and Research, National Maritime Museum (Royal Museums Greenwich), United Kingdom
John Crumlish, CEO of Galway International Arts Festival, Galway International Arts Festival, Ireland
José Luis R. Gallego, Co-Chair, Cátedra de Cambio Climático, University of Oviedo, Spain
Luís Ferreira, President of the Association, Associação Viver Em Alegria, Portugal
Michael Walling, Artistic Director, Border Crossings, United Kingdom
Pablo de Soto Suárez, Managing Director, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Spain
Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, Coordinator, Puerto Rican Arts Initiative, United States
Silvia Albert Sopale, President, Periferia Cimarronas, Spain
William Dwyer III, Head of Middle Years Program, MYP Coordinator, Trondheim International School, Norway
Achievements:
Aaltonen, H. (2023) ‘Re-storying SDG 14: Life Below Water’, Nordic Journal of Art and Research, 12.2: https://doi.org/10.7577/ar.5172.
Aaltonen, H. (2021) ‘Celebrating Neighbourhood Birds: Performing Equality in Avian–Human Performance’, in Theatre and Democracy: Building Democracy in Post-War and Post-Democratic Contexts, ed. P. Janse van Vuuren, B. Rasmussen & A. Khala, Oslo: Cappelan Damm Akademisk, 217–37: https://doi.org/10.23865/noasp.135
Aaltonen, H. (2020) ‘Manifestet: Advancing Freedom to Be Alive-in-Connectedness’, Drama: Nordisk Dramapedagogisktidskrift, 2: 6–7.
Areia, N. P., Tavares, A. O., & Costa, P. J. (2023). Public Perception and Preferences for Coastal Risk Management: Evidence from a Convergent Parallel Mixed-Methods Study’, Science of The Total Environment, 882, 163440: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163440.
Areia, N. P., Costa, P. J. & Tavares, A. O. (2022) ‘Social Engagement in Coastal Adaptation Processes: Development and Validation of the CoastADAPT Scale’, Environmental Science & Policy, 133, 107–14: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2022.03.011.
Lonergan, P. (2024) ‘Ecodramaturgy and the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Abbey Theatre’s Adaptation of Patrick Kavanagh’s The Great Hunger (2020)’, in The Routledge Companion to Twenty-First-Century Irish Writing, ed. A. Fogarty and E. O’Brien, London: Routledge, 249–60.
Lonergan, P. (2023) Theatre Revivals for the Anthropocene, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lonergan, P. (2022) ‘“A Missile to the Future”: The Theatre Ecologies of Caryl Churchill’s Far Away on Spike Island’, Journal Of Contemporary Drama In English, 10.1: 133–47
Matias, A., Pinto, B., Areia, N. P. & Carrasco, A. R. (2024) ‘Insights into the Public Engagement of Coastal Geoscientists’, Environmental Science & Policy, 162, 103943: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103943.