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The Creative Landscape Of Theatre–Research Cooperation: A Case From Turku, Finland

Geografiska Annaler Series B Human Geography

Published online on

Abstract

This article continues the discussion on creativity in human geographical research. Drawing on Alain Badiou's writing on “two theatres”, I argue that the theatre–research cooperation as a landscape in motion can bring about creative landscapes. In this article, I discuss a collaborative project of participatory research and theatre that tested drama as a tool for urban planning. In the beginning of the project, theatre appears as a tool of inclusive exclusive politics: the research aims to deal with inter‐cultural relations in a hypothetical planning situation and, further, on theatre's potential to motivate those who usually do not participate in planning. Thus, this initial setting is the first theatre in which the elements of a constellation are seen as static. However, during the process, there were moments of doubt, dealing with the representational politics of multiculturalism. Contrary to Badiou's first theatre, in the second theatre the elements are vivid and capable of breaking the state of a situation. This rupture occurs in the second theatre w hen the spectators feel uncomfortable in their seats, or here when the participatory researcher feel their aims generate an inconvenience. It is in the event that theatre changes from being of the state to saying something about the state. This change represents a rupture in thinking, and brings forth the creative landscape of the theatre–research cooperation.