Project Overview
In Place of War is a project of the University of Manchester, supported by the Leverhulme Trust.
In Place of War was launched in July 2004, this phase of the In Place of War project researched and created performance in sites of armed conflict as well as supporting and documenting performance work by artists and communities displaced by war. The project aimed to generate information and resources about how performance is responding to war which was used to create dialogue with practitioners and researchers internationally.
The project had 4 overriding research questions:
- How do performance practitioners respond to war?
- How do war-affected communities use performance during and immediately after war?
- What ethical dilemmas arise from these practices?
- What theoretical models can be developed for performance in place of war?
The next phase of In Place of War (2009 - 2011) is to support an international network of parctitioners and academics -
- It connects practitioners that struggle to negotiate new territories, identities and configurations of power.
- It supports projects that exist in sites where the tensions and paradoxes of humanitarianism, democracy, development and globalization are at their most acute.
- It aims to debate the role of theatre and performance in places where issues of reconciliation, remembrance and human rights are both complex and contradictory.
- It validates arts practices that exist in these environments - and aims to raise questions about the ethical, aesthetic and political impact of this work.
From January 2009, In Place of War has been engaged in developing a network of artists working across war and crisis zones internationally. This phase of the research project is funded by the Leverhulme Trust (UK). The network will meet once a year for three consecutive years (with the first meeting in July 2009 and the final meeting in 2011). Subsequent meetings will be in the countries of partner artists.
The network partners are currently from Australia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo/a, the Palestinian Territories, Sri Lanka and Sudan. This website provides a platform to disseminate the process and outcomes of each network meeting. It also contains links to the outcomes of the first phase of In Place of War (2005-2008), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK).
In 2009 In Place of War published Performance In Place of War - a book documenting performance projects in war zones around the world. The current stage of the project aims to support existing partners, document their work and make it available for others, as well as to create new practice and encourage dialogue between artists. The aim is to support the work - and the analysis of the work.
