NATURE THEATRE

performance, street intervention, art research

2016, 2017 - germany

artists:
iryna zamuruieva

here, we mark off a small patch of a park with a red and white hazard tape. not to say that there is any hazard inside, really, but on the contrary to invite people into the space. we’ve got chairs in rows and theatre posters (introducing the cast: the grass, the bugs, the cars, people and seagulls).

once the usher has accompanied all the audience members to their seats, iryna makes a few technical remarks: performance lasts 5 minutes, phones off please, hope you enjoy the show. the bell rings, the performance starts, ‘nothing’ is happening. or everything is happening? what is happening? look at the drama unfolding between the two ducks! listen into the howling wind for the eerie soundtrack. how, already? the time flew by. everyone, welcome into the lobby, what did you think of the show?

this was a ‘nature theatre’ performance. an intervention iryna created as a way to experiment with how art can change how we think about ‘nature’. practising response-ability was — and is — a part of a wider process of socio-ecological transformation towards more-collaborative-with-more-than-human ways of living on this planet.

the production of this work has been carried out by activists, artists, public intellectuals, academics and many others, who imagine and propose new, exciting possibilities for more-than-human societies. in collectively unfolding these types of futures (and not others), telling these kinds of stories (and not others), the spirit and the practice of experimentation is a golden thread in iryna’s practice.

read more about the background and ideas behind this intervention at nature theatre: reimagining socio-natural assemblages.