I am Cathy Turner, a researcher and walking artist.
I am a Professor of Drama at the University of Exeter, and one of four artist-researchers in Wrights & Sites, an artists’ organization based in South West England.
My research into the connections between theatre and architecture as ways of re-imagining city space led to my book, Dramaturgy and Architecture: Theatre, Utopia and the Built Environment, Palgrave, 2015.
My current interests are in Indian performance and ritual in its engagement with public space,* gardens for/as/in performance, and open air performance more widely. This research, in various forms, has been supported by a range of grants, currently from Leverhulme (Research Grant), and previously from AHRC, GCRF, BA and the National Trust. When researching open air performance, Evelyn O’Malley is a close collaborator and we are currently co-writing a book for Bloomsbury, following two funded projects. For more on this collaboration see our joint site.
Previous research has included a collaboration with Synne Behrndt in researching contemporary dramaturgy as profession and concept, with a focus on the UK. Our book, Dramaturgy and Performance, came out in a revised edition with Palgrave in 2016.
Wrights & Sites‘ work includes a series of ‘Mis-Guides’, which propose ways of walking** that make places strange to us. Our most recent publication is The Architect-Walker: A Mis-Guide (2018). Again, mainly documented on the joint site.
The ‘Sometimes Walking’ Research Blog is where I update my individual research sporadically, and for now, under the sub-category, ‘Performing Gardens’.
*We can argue about whether there is such a thing, of course.
**’Walking’ is here understood to include other ways of getting about, including wheelchairs, pushchairs, crawling, or whatever is accessible.
