NSCD Lecturer in Performance and Creative & Contextual Studies, Fernanda Prata, undertook a five-day research project with a group of NSCD students to investigate identity through performance practice, looking particularly at the construction of identity through associations to home.
Supported by Northern School of Contemporary Dance and the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, ‘hoME’ investigated the ways in which individuals relate to the built environment and how social and cultural objects are used to demarcate space.
"We rescued memories about feeling safe, feeling comfort but also sometimes feeling distress [...] Home is not always a place of safety, for some people home can be quite a stressful place."
Building on the notion that the place we call home exists beyond four walls, becoming an extension of the self, Fernanda invited four female performers from different countries and backgrounds to take part in the research, exploring how each built their identity in relation to place.
We came to the conclusion that, [..] at least for this particular group of women that I worked with, home is not something tactile, it is not attached to a certain object or certain space, […] there was something much more about the feeling or state.
Read more about the project on Fernanda’s website.
Collaborators: Nora Monsecour, Isabella Dubroca, Kate Forster, Misato Shimizu, Ben King
