Scenography as Material Thinking - The Inaugural Lecture of Professor Joslin McKinney

The School of Performance and Cultural Industries invites you to the Inaugural Lecture of  Joslin McKinney, Professor of Scenography.

Scenography is ‘a mode of encounter and exchange founded on spatial and material relations between bodies, objects and environments’. As such, it is way of thinking through and with material; It is a way of revealing ‘how things make things happen’.

The insights yielded through this approach are not confined to the theatre stage; they might be applied to other circumstances where materials, spaces and bodies intersect, and can bring new perspectives to (and insights on) the ways in which we experience and make sense of the world.

In this lecture, ‘Scenography as Material Thinking’, Professor McKinney will show how a focus on materiality opens up a deeper understanding of how scenography operates. During the lecture she will explore what materials such as costumes, objects, light, architectonic space can do, and what they can make spectators think and feel.

The lecture will be followed by a  drinks reception. Attendance is free, but registration is required in advance via Ticketsource.

About Joslin

Joslin originally trained and worked as a theatre designer and her research deals with how scenography - design for and as performance - 'performs'.

Traditionally, scenography has been considered a craft-based and marginal discipline within theatre and performance studies, but Joslin is one of a small group of researchers internationally who have shaped the agenda for scenographic research, bringing rigour and focus to this emerging discipline and support a new generation of researchers.

She has used creative practice (her own and that of others) to examine what materials - costumes, objects, light, architectonic space - can do and what they can make spectators think and to feel.

Joslin is co- convenor of the PLACE research group, and is Programme Leader for the Masters in Performance Design in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries.

If you would like to hear more about these future inaugural lectures or other events in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries please join their mailing list. Future planned inaugural lectures in the School include Professor George Rodosthenous on 7 June 2023.