Migration and Performative Practices

The first part of the event, led by Dr Natalie Katsou and Debora Minà, reflected on the project ‘Performing the Asylum Law’ and specifically on a series of workshops on asylum law and legal practice that took place across three British Institutions (Goldsmiths, London Metropolitan University and University of Southampton) during March 2025. The main question explored was how theatre and performance can help us interpret the law and respond to different parts of the asylum claim process. The seminar also invited attendees to reflect on the activities discussed and to contribute to next steps and further questions.

In the workshops discussed in the seminar paper, students from Theatre and Performance and students from Law co-produced ideas and suggestions in response to the asylum law as a drama play. The creative activities investigated methods of reading statutes and identifying blind spots that create obstacles in the process through theatre and performance techniques. The collaborative tasks also involved potential interactions between legal practitioners and claimants. Some areas for discussion included the potential of theatre and performance to develop tools for interpretation, experimentation and meaningful interaction between people on the move and asylum specialists. The goal was to understand parts of the asylum process through embodied methods and produce creative suggestions that improve the experience of people in migration.

The activities were co-designed by Dr Natalie Katsou and Debora Minà. This series of workshops and this event were part of the larger postdoctoral research project conducted by Dr Natalie Katsou under the title ‘Performing Refuge and Asylum: Embodiment and the Law in Greece and in the UK’ at Goldsmiths.

In the second part of the event, artist Marina Moreno discussed her project ‘We All Come from Somewhere’. Funded by Arts Council England and originally commissioned by Tate Liverpool in 2019, the project was recently presented at Fondazione Marta Czok in Venice during the 60th Biennale Arte and celebrates the human right to movement and migration, and the cultural richness that this entails. Curated by Dr Jacek Ludwig Scarso, this was an interactive installation where stories of migration and displacement were shared. Bearing the symbol of the shipyard rope in reference to the ports of Venice and Liverpool, the participants created sculptures, reflecting the distance from their first home and the journeys travelled thereafter.

The waterways, in Venice as in Liverpool, resume a history of continuous displacement caused by multiple factors: from economic exchange to the need for political refuge and, again, to imperialism and colonialism. These global factors have a specific impact on the individual, creating an infinite number of personal narratives that reflect the fluidity of what gives us the perception of geographical belonging.

Speakers:

Moderator:

Dr Jacek Ludwig Scarso