Staging Difficult Pasts: Of Narratives, Objects and Public Memory

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This project examines how theatres and museums are currently shaping public memory of difficult pasts through their staging of narratives and objects. Engaging directly with research partners and major cultural institutions, the project is a collaboration among the Department of Drama, Theatre and Dance at Royal Holloway, University of London, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of Minnesota, Cricoteka, Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor (Kraków), Teatre Lliure (Barcelona), ESMA Museum and Teatro Cervantes (Buenos Aires), Holocaust Research Institute, Jewish Museum London and Imperial War Museum's Holocaust Gallery. The primary aims are: (i) to analyse how public memory of 'difficult pasts' is being staged in contemporary theatre and museal practices; (ii) to chart how these practices are increasingly informed cross-institutionally; (iii) and to foster transnational collaboration and dialogue to enhance these practices. Through fieldwork (archival research, research visits to museums and theatres, interviews with curators and theatre makers), workshops, public talks, and an international symposium the project team will specifically analyse transnational case studies in Argentina, Lithuania, Poland, Spain and the UK, which will widely extend research on the distinctions and interactions between memory and history specifically through the lenses of theatre and performance studies, visual culture, and museum and curator studies and more broadly through memory studies, history, Holocaust studies, cultural geography and modern languages.Argentina, Lithuania, Poland and Spain all share highly politicized and extremely divisive debates over their difficult pasts, specifically in relation to authoritarianism, fascism and communism. Theatres and museums have been key sites for these debates, which shape and broaden public memory. Over the past few decades, widespread attempts to expose or reinterpret the public memory of formerly taboo historical narratives have come to public concern through their staging in theatres and museums for live audiences. We have also selected project partners in the UK to establish transcultural research links that will broaden the remit and impact of the research. Staging difficult pasts, theatre makers have innovated narrative forms and reframed theatrical and artefactual objects, while museum curators have increasingly privileged the 'staging' of historical narratives over the display of objects, producing performative encounters as their primary object. Thus, the project's focus will both advance transnational research on the staging of difficult pasts through narrative and object, and the key points of intersection between theatres and museums and their shaping global memory discourses. Workshops, public talks and the symposium will bring together practitioners and scholars from theatre and performance studies, visual culture, museum and curator studies, history, Holocaust studies, cultural geography and modern languages. Through workshops, we aim to document and analyse current strategies and aims employed by leading theatre makers and curators. Inviting artists to collaborate with institutions outside of their own cultural spheres, we will foster transnational dialogue and provide the opportunities for innovation across cultural sectors. We are inviting theatres and museums to work across their traditional disciplinary boundaries to generate innovation and develop strategies that serve their public aims. Forms of dissemination will have an extensive audience. These include interdisciplinary edited collections, workshops, public talks, learning materials for university libraries, the Routledge Performance Archive and the Holocaust Research Institute, and a project website, and grey literature reports.