Cathy Turner is a British artist and researcher, specialising in dramaturgy, site-specific performance and walking art. She is a founder member of
Wrights & Sites Wrights & Sites is a group of British artists who work with site-specific performance and walking art. Founded in 1997, Wrights & Sites consists of artist researchers Stephen Hodge, Simon Persighetti, Phil Smith and Cathy Turner. Their work is inspi ...
, and a Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter. Turner's practice and research explore how one's life experience can influence one's perception of their environment.
Dramaturgy
Turner's
dramaturgical research focuses on the relationship between performance and place, an area she has explored and documented in her book ''Dramaturgy and Architecture: Theatre, Utopia and the Built Environment.''
Wrights & Sites
Turner is a founding member of
Wrights & Sites Wrights & Sites is a group of British artists who work with site-specific performance and walking art. Founded in 1997, Wrights & Sites consists of artist researchers Stephen Hodge, Simon Persighetti, Phil Smith and Cathy Turner. Their work is inspi ...
, a group of artist-researchers who develop site-specific artistic works. They are best known for their walking misguides, and their use of the
Letterist
Lettrism is a French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou. In a body of work totaling hundreds of volumes, Isou and the Lettrists have applied their theories to all areas of art and culture ...
/
Situationist practice of
dérive.
Walking Women
In 2009 Turner collaborated with
Deirdre Heddon
Deirdre Heddon (born 1969), is Professor of Contemporary Performance at the University of Glasgow (UK). She is a practice-based researcher and has published articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as academic monographs and book-chapters. She ...
on a series of interviews with women walking artists. In their two essays, 'Walking Women: Shifting the Tales and Scales of Mobility' and 'Walking Women: interviews with artists on the move', Heddon and Turner argue that a fraternal lineage dominates walking, with the practices of female walkers erased or marginalised. Their work introduces the voices of contemporary female artists that walk into the historical record.
Heddon and Turner's work has sparked a series of practice-based interventions that focus on women who walk. These include 'Er Outdoors' a series of radio programs curated by Jo Norcup that make 'audible the voices of women past and present'; and WALKING WOMEN, a series of exhibitions, talks and events curated by
Amy Sharrocks and
Clare Qualmann
Clare Qualmann is a British multi-media performance artist based in London, UK. She is a senior lecturer in performing arts at the University of East London and also teaches at London Metropolitan University.
Career
Qualmann's work uses a range of ...
that actively 're-write the canon' and 'imagine a future in which gender bias and skewed vision is destroyed'.
Selected works
Performance
* ''Ambulant Architectures'' (2012), Sideways Festival, Belgium
* ''Everything you need to build a town is here'' (2010), Wonders of Weston, UK
* ''Mis-Guided: Elsewhere in Fribourg'' (2008), Belluard Bollwerk International Festival, Switzerland
* ''Mis-Guide: Stadtverführungen in Wien'' (2007), Tanzquartier Wien and Wienerfestwochen, Austria
* ''Possible Forests'' (2007), Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World, Devon, UK
* ''Blue Boy Walks'' (2004), Spacex Gallery, ‘Homeland’ Exhibition, Exeter and Winchester, UK
* ''And On The Thousandth Night…'' (2002), Kunsten Festival Des Arts, Belgium
* ''The Quay Thing'', (1999), Exeter, UK
Dramaturgy
* ''Nora and I (2009)'', Funded by Arts Council England.
* ''Writing Space'', (2008), Funded by The Arts and Humanities Research Council.
* ''An Infinite Line'': (2007), contributed to Dramaturgical Labs for 2008 Brighton Festival
Selected publications
Cathy Turner (2015). ''Dramaturgy and Architecture: Theatre, Utopia and the Built Environment.'' Palgrave.
Cathy Turner and Synne Behrndt (2007).''Dramaturgy and Performance''. Palgrave Macmillan.
Cathy Turner, Tony Weaver, Stephen Hodge, Simon Persighetti and Phil Smith (2006). ''A Mis-Guide to Anywhere.'' Wrights & Sites.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Turner, Cathy
Walking artists
Living people
British women artists
British performance artists
Year of birth missing (living people)