Zoë Svendsen is a British director and academic. She is currently working as a lecturer in Drama and Performance at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

Career

Svendsen became a lecturer at the

in 2013. Svendsen directed the interactive performance, ''World Factory'' at the

Young Vic The Young Vic Theatre is a performing arts venue located on The Cut, near the South Bank, in the London Borough of Lambeth. The Young Vic was established by Frank Dunlop in 1970. Nadia Fall has been artistic director since 2025, succeeding ...

in 2015. From July 2016 to June 2017, she was part of th
Future Scenarios networked residency programme
a project designed to imagine different futures under the auspices of climate change. From October 2017 to July 2018 Svendsen worked as an early career fellow at

Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) is an interdisciplinary research centre within the University of Cambridge. Founded in 2001, CRASSH came into being as a way to create interdisciplinary dialogue across ...

(CRASSH), moving to Lent Term in 2018. In 2017, she was a resident at the Attenborough Centre of Creative Arts. She is an honorary research fellow a
Birkbeck Centre
for Contemporary Theatre.

Works

We know not what we may be

Svensden is currently working on an installation entitled WE KNOW NOT WHAT WE MAY BE which appeared at the

Barbican A barbican (from ) is a fortified outpost or fortified gateway, such as at an outer defense perimeter of a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes. Europe Medieval Europeans typically b ...

in September 2018 as part of it
Art of Change
season. Over the last 2 years there has been a series of research in public conversations where Svendsen has interviewed a series of experts asking the questions: ‘What is the best possible economic structure for responding to climate change and what would it be like to live in this future system?’. The information and ideas gathered from these interviews formed part of the installation. WE KNOW NOT WHAT WE MAY BE was produced by Artsadmin.

World Factory

World Factory is an interdisciplinary, interactive performance created by Zoe Svendsen and Simon Daw. The project explored global consumerism using the premise of the textile industry to illustrate the complex problems created by consumer demand. As part of their research for the performance, Svendsen and Daw travelled to China and commissioned the production of a shirt. They also interviewed Chinese factory workers whose testaments form part of the show. The show was first shown in 2015 at the Young Vic. It later toured in Brighton, Cambridge and Manchester. It formed part of the fabrications festival in 2017 at Brierfield Mills - produced by Artsadmin.

3rd Ring out: rehearsing the future

This work was written and performed in 2010/2011 in several sites around the UK, including Edinburgh, Newcastle, Norwich, Ipswich and Greenwich. Svendsen set the scene in 2033, a small audience is invited into a converted orange shipping container where they assume the role of emergency planners. An ecological emergency - caused by global warming - unfolds in 'real time' and the audience has to take collective decisions, steered by an actor assuming the role of emergency commander.

Publications

* 2018 World Factory: The Gam
Nick Hern Books
, Authors Zoe Svendsen and Simon Daw

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Svendsen, Zoe Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Cambridge University Orators British women dramatists and playwrights