Join us for an informal research café lunch event exploring the politics of high-rise housing, the cladding crisis, performance and activism. We are looking to start a collaborative project that brings together research and activism on the cladding crisis in Greater Manchester with theatre and civic engagement.
Our starting point is the powerful documentary play Dictating to the Estate, written by Nathaniel McBride, which tells the backstory of the Grenfell Tower fire, its botched refurbishment and residents’ attempts to hold the Council to account. It places these events in a wider context of austerity, deregulation and estate regeneration. After a very successful run in London, we aim to rework the production to speak to the UK-wide cladding crisis, and in particular experiences in Greater Manchester, which has the highest number of buildings affected by flammable cladding outside of London.
We are interested in building links with cladding action groups, housing activists, researchers, and theatre practitioners. If you’d like to hear more, please come along!
This event will be chaired by Dr Carl Fraser, Situation Architecture and Associate Researcher
Speakers:
Constance Smith is a Lecturer and UKRI Future Leader Fellow in Social Anthropology at The University of Manchester. Her work examines the politics of urban change, housing and infrastructure and how their materialities shape ways of engaging with the past and anticipating the future. She is currently leading a project on the afterlives of high-rise housing disasters in the UK and in Kenya, including the Grenfell fire. See https://www.highriselandscapes.org/
Nathaniel McBride is a writer and translator living in Kensington, west London. He has been involved in local activism for several years, and stood as a Labour candidate in last year's council elections. His play Dictating to the Estate, about events leading up to the Grenfell Tower fire, was performed in North Kensington last year.
Jenny Hughes is Professor in Drama based in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at The University of Manchester. Her research interests include: the histories of theatre, performance and poverty; contemporary theatre practice and economic justice; activist theatre and protest performance; applied theatre and performance, especially with young people living with risk; and research methodologies in applied theatre and theatre studies. Jenny is co-investigator on AHRC funded project: 'Civic Theatres: A Place for Towns', which aims to support a national conversation about the civic role of theatres in towns, asking challenging questions about the resurgence of the 'civic ideal' in an era of ongoing economic austerity and social fragmentation.
Richard Kirkham is a Reader in Civil Engineering in the newly created Department of Engineering Management, at The University of Manchester, where he is also Head of Post-Graduate Research. He is also Deputy Director of the Thomas Ashton Institute, an inter-disciplinary collaboration between the HSE Science Division and The University of Manchester, which focuses on risk and regulatory science research. Richard is the ‘knowledge-transfer’ workstream co-lead in the Cabinet Office Science and Engineering Network and has undertaken research commissions for government in the context of major project delivery.
Carl Fraser is a designer and researcher with a background in architecture whose work explores interdisciplinary creative practices with the aim of developing ‘public forums’ as a crucible for shared, negotiated spaces with agency and impact in society. These projects are collaborations built to impact public policy and urban development strategies. In addition, visual mapping is used as a tool of analysis and expression. Carl specialises in work which explores the development of social spaces through a combination of digital media and temporary, built environments, to inform pathways for improved futures for a diversity of inhabitants
