PSi 29

The conference is hosted by The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in collaboration with LIFT (London International Theatre Festival), in partnership with the University of London’s Birkbeck, Royal Holloway, and School of Advanced Studies.

This hybrid conference focuses on the main theme of Assemble: to gather in one place for a common purpose or to put together the parts of something. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and global struggles for justice and recognition, we have to reconsider how to assemble, how to come together, to build, to imagine, to co-create in hostile conditions, and, conversely, what we need to disassemble, to take apart, to dismantle, to decenter, to unlearn.

Resonant with infrastructures, politics and processes of assemblage, the conference invites and foregrounds practice research, creative critical interventions, processes of making and their antithesis, un-making. It aims to critically explore the multifaceted nature of performance assemblage and disassembly, examining its potential to shape and transform our understanding of the world.

PSi #29 will assemble and explore contributions from a wide range of disciplines and practices, including performance studies, theatre, dance, live art, music, visual arts, sociology, cultural studies, philosophy, law, social sciences, and history. The conference will feature workshops, presentations, performances, screenings, roundtables, open conversations, laboratories, installations, and more, bringing together diverse theoretical, methodological, and creative approaches to the theme of Assemble.