Singleton, Aled, Brookes, Edward and Slatter, Ruth
2025.
Participatory collaborations between geographers and performance artists: Taking urban renewal histories to the street.
Area
, e70052.
10.1111/area.70052
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Abstract
This article explores how collaborations between geographers and performance artists can offer new ways for present-day communities to engage with the histories and legacies of postwar urban planning. Focusing on the development of site-responsive performances in Newport (Wales) codesigned by geographer Aled Singleton, Tin Shed Theatre Co and artist TEMMAH, the paper examines how artistic interventions can mediate contested planning documents, oral histories and lived experiences. Drawing on archival research, oral testimony and embodied performance, the project reimagined Newport's post-World War II renewal through performances staged in the streets, layered with both real and imagined voices from the past and subsequently turned into online and digital formats. These interventions challenged official narratives of urban renewal and foregrounded alternative memories and experiences. The article reflects critically on the methodological, ethical and political dimensions of this work, arguing that participatory historical geography, when entangled with artistic practice, can transform how urban pasts are remembered, represented and contested, and opens up new possibilities for place-based, public engagement with the planning histories that continue to shape urban life.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Published Online |
| Status: | In Press |
| Schools: | Schools > Geography and Planning (GEOPL) |
| Publisher: | Wiley |
| ISSN: | 0004-0894 |
| Funders: | ESRC |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 29 August 2025 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 14 August 2025 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Sep 2025 10:45 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/180735 |
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