stepping into the landscape: an Ecostage Lab
A space to explore and share together, a deep dive into ecological thinking with a focus on sustaining and enjoying our eco-minded paths and careers.
I took a step into the landscape and found a room full of inspiring people, wanting to share, learn and explore creative ecological practices.
The landscape was vast, green, flourishing with beauty, wealth and knowledge, all shared amongst the people. Some of those people were there to teach, some were there to try new things, some were hoping for a springboard into a new life. Together we lost ourselves in a mess of creativity and eventually found something unexpected: a world of transformation that cares for the well-being of its people, wildlife and most of all, its planet.
On October 24th, Ecostage hosted our first ever Ecostage Lab called Stepping into the Landscape.
I travelled down to London to stay with and meet the Ecostage team as we set out on this new venture of bringing people together and trialling out some things we’ve been working on behind the scenes.
Who are Ecostage?
Ecostage is an initiative founded by industry professionals to share practical and creative approaches to green up the performing arts sector. A catalyst for individual and collective transformation, offering a roadmap for everyone at all stages of their eco-journey, providing multiple routes for change-making.
The Ecostage core team are individually and collectively involved in exploring and promoting sustainable practices. Since launching at COP26, we have been involved in national and international conversations and workshops around sustainable design practices, including World Stage Design (2022), Prague Quadrennial (2023), Climate Dramaturgy in the Performing Arts (Thailand, 2024).
Ecostage team members have also been frequent guest lecturers at colleges and universities across the UK, and contributors to the Theatre Green Book and Society of British Theatre Designers Sustainable Materials Guide.
What was Stepping into the Landscape: An Ecostage Lab?
This Ecostage Lab was a hands-on, creative workshop run by the Ecostage practitioners (Paul Burgess, Andrea Carr, Kira Curtis [me], Ruth Stringer), inviting participants to explore ecological practices in a performing arts context.
A space to explore and share together. Ecostage offers a deep dive into ecological thinking with a focus on sustaining and enjoying our eco-minded paths and careers. For a fair, flourishing future in the performing arts.
Explore the terrain of the Seven Ecostage Principles as a holistic, interconnected approach, with particular emphasis on creativity, wellbeing and sustainability
Use the Ecostage Framework to collaboratively map the journey of a production or project, using playful and interactive tools
Other activities including hearing from speakers offering different approaches, case studies, roundtable discussions, networking and knowledge sharing
How did the day go?
After working hard in the run up to, I’m not sure what we were expecting. The event was hosted for free so granted not as many people turned up as had actually booked, but in the end I don’t think we could’ve asked for anything better.
The first half of the day was focused on the Seven Ecostage Principles. Each being introduced by a member of the team followed by a selection of flash talks and case study examples.
A summary of guest speakers
Catrin John, Freelance Arts and Sustainability Consultant, explained a little about the way sustainability currently works in the creative industries and gave some suggestions for improvement, sharing the ‘Sustainability in the Arts’ diagram.
Daniel Swift MBE, Chief Executive & Artistic Director of Concrete Youth, shared how his team operate a 4-day week, offer ongoing mental health support and work endlessly to ensure the wellbeing of their staff and audiences are the priority of everything they do.
Urs Dierker, Doctoral researcher and Founder of Circular Costume Design, took us through some of his discoveries when experimenting with living materials, and discussed the question ‘What does it mean to care and kill to create what I need and want?’.
Tasnim Siddiqa Amin, Assistant Director of Daedalus Theatre Company, gave a very personal outlook on our role for collective transformation, sharing examples of community theatre projects and their own challenges with protests and activism (please do read their story here).
Chloé Cornell and Valentina Miranda introduced their new venture, C(re)ate, a pre-startup online platform in development that aims to become a collaborative community space, knowledge centre and marketplace for access to second hand materials across the arts industries.
The Ecostage team brought a number of their own examples and case studies to add to the principles including a range of short creative activities from breaking down electronics to building back up artefacts from a thrutopian future. It was wonderful to see everyone get stuck in so enthusiatically. The afternoon session focused on the new and upcoming Ecostage Framework, trialling out worksheets and activities, getting our first round of feedback before it goes officially live.
Key takeaways from the Ecostage Lab
It’s events like these that really show the collective enthusiam that exists for a better future, making change in sustainable ways, and coming together to share our knowledge. The inspiration gained motivates us to take action in our own lives and projects.
Here are a few key takeaways from this particular Ecostage Lab:
Items may get broken but there’s always another use for it’s materials, open it up and find a treasure trove
There are already so many people out there working hard to make the industry more caring and sustainable and we need to keep on working together
There’s no end to what we can imagine and make if we continue to experiment, but doing so mindfully is important to not create further harm to the world around us
Take a step into the future to see a life we hope to live and create longing for change in the present
Art has the ability to transform individuals, communities and policy if we keep on showing up and working together
Ecostage hope to continue to bring events like this, creating a space to play and learn, so I haven’t wanted to go into too much detail as to what goes on so you can hopefully attend a future event (feel free to email admin@ecostage.online if you have a venue and would like to co-organise another lab with us). For now, I hope this signalled you towards some people doing some cool stuff and has given you a bit of motivation to organise and attend events like this.
*Info and quotes taken from ecostage.online