Does the complexity of a work of art, composed of diverging narratives, present a possibility to connect to what we do not grasp? In this exposition I present interweaving as a compositional technique and dramaturgical strategy, through aspects of the creative process connected to and elements of three installations – part of a series called Ruins. The installations combine different aspects of storytelling, participatory strategies, media, and forms of expression.

Government-regulated business closures, social distancing from people, and stay-at-home orders emptied the urban environment of the presence of people. This effectively created new sonic relationships between natural and urbanised sounds within our built society. As Covid-19 instilled a state of abandonment from our urban spaces with each variation of lockdowns, there was an opportunity to document these changes through a sonic-journalistic approach.

Is it possible to communicate through photography about people in distress? Through this exposition we approach such issues as media imagery and image fatigue, photography of ‘the other’, the privileged position, significant encounters, and reciprocity. We also show how commitment to social issues may relate to such an artistic process as both starting point and outcome.

This research exposition presents practical object theatre exercises and investigates how these exercises may enhance the designer’s practice to work with objects in participatory design projects. The study was set up in a theatre-design laboratory in collaboration with researcher and lecturer Sean Myatt from Nottingham Trent University and an international cohort of three design graduates with multidisciplinary backgrounds in design, communication, and social work.

This exposition proposes a method of artistic research that uses (and disobediently misuses) techniques of reconstruction as a mode of performative, artistic, and architectural invention. Our speculative notion of reconstruction challenges inherited disciplinary notions of historiography and simultaneously functions as a propositional and generative tool. The exposition revolves around the discussion of a research and performance project entitled Jakob K., which reconstructs the works of fictional Bauhaus choreographer and gymnastics teacher Jakob Klenke (1874–1941).

This exposition describes a creative collaboration in the self-governed Tłı̨chǫ region of Canada’s Northwest Territories. As part of this collaboration, Indigenous research methods and participatory experiences facilitated a process by which regional oral history was visualised and translated into animation. As a long-term project, this research was based on relationships through which a non-Indigenous researcher was able to learn and exchange knowledge with elders and youth from the region.