Sites of Transformation: Applied and Socially Engaged Scenography in Rural Landscapes

Louise Ann Wilson's book explores scenography as a distinctive type of applied art and performance practice that seeks tangible, therapeutic, and transformative real-world outcomes. She uses case studies from her site-specific walking performances to demonstrate how scenography can emplace challenging, marginalizing, or 'missing life-events' into rural landscapes, creating a site of transformation. Her work has addressed terminal illness, bereavement, infertility, childlessness, and (im)mobility and memory. The book reveals Wilson's creative methodology and the 7 'scenographic principles' she has developed, which are underpinned by the concept of the feminine 'material sublime' and informed by the attentive, autotopographic, therapeutic, and highly scenographic use of walking and landscape.

Format: Hardback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 24 February 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

In her groundbreaking work, "Socially Engaged Scenography: Creating Tangible, Therapeutic, and Transformative Real-World Outcomes," practitioner and researcher Louise Ann Wilson delves into the expanding realm of socially engaged scenography, advocating for its recognition as a distinct form of applied art and performance practice. She calls it "scenography with purpose," emphasizing its mission to achieve tangible, therapeutic, and transformative outcomes in the real world. Through a series of case studies drawn from her extensive body of site-specific walking performances created in the UK since 2011, Wilson showcases how scenography can be used to infuse challenging, marginalized, or "missing life events" into rural landscapes, thereby creating a transformative site where participants can reflect upon, re-image, and re-imagine their relationships to their circumstances.

Her artistic creations have addressed a wide range of topics, including terminal illness and bereavement, infertility and childlessness by circumstance, as well as (im)mobility and memory. These works have taken place in diverse natural environments, including mountains, caves, coastlines, and beaches. Each case study is supported by substantial evidence demonstrating the effects and outcomes of the performance being discussed.

The book offers a deep insight into Wilson's creative methodology, which combines three distinct strands of transdisciplinary research: the site/landscape, the subject/life event, and the people/participants affected by it. She elucidates the seven "scenographic principles" she has developed, which draw upon theories and aesthetics related to land/scape art, walking, and performance practices from Early Romanticism to the present day. These principles are grounded in the concept of the feminine "material sublime" and informed by the attentive, autotopographic, therapeutic, and highly scenographic use of walking and landscape.

Through her work, Wilson challenges traditional notions of scenography and performance, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the realm of applied art and performance. She advocates for scenography to be recognized as a powerful tool for social change, enabling artists and performers to engage with communities, address social issues, and promote empathy and understanding. "Socially Engaged Scenography: Creating Tangible, Therapeutic, and Transformative Real-World Outcomes" is a seminal work that will inspire and empower practitioners and researchers in the field of scenography and beyond.

Weight: 520g
Dimension: 164 x 242 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350104440