TYPE OF WORK
Interdisciplinary and collaborative performance, live art and visual art.

TARGET GROUPS
Contexts and targets: Community organisations, business community, artists, NGO workers, campaigners, policy makers, students, researchers.

Issues:  Environment, human rights, urban regeneration, citizenship/democracy, social justice, corporate social responsibility, energy issues.

GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT
UK, North America, Central and Eastern Europe

COMPANY POLICY
To promote creative processes of democratic engagement to advance social and ecological justice.

The company creates unique communities of interest where people from different backgrounds and perspectives (from economists to artists) are united in an atmosphere of trust to discuss complex issues.  They use a variety of strategies from performances to walks and discussion-feasts.

PLATFORM regularly runs workshops and seminars for diverse arts educational institutions.  In 2004, in collaboration with Birkbeck, University of London, it will pioneer a 12-week interdisciplinary course for artists and others concerned about social and ecological justice.

SCALE OF PROJECTS
Number of practitioners:  2-10
Number of participants:  5-800
Preparation time:  6 months – 2 years
Contact time:  A few days – 10 years

PERMANENT STAFF
Dan Gretton, Co-Director
James Marriott, Co-Director
Jane Trowell, Co-Director

Homeland (UK, 1993)
A six-week nomadic public dialogue in a visually transformed pantechnicon, investigating the impact of global trade on Londoners’ emotional connectedness to those lands and peoples who produce what we consume.  Homeland explored participants’ feelings through drawing, interviewing and mapping.  Homeland introduced the concept of the ‘ecological footprint’ and the impacts of globalisation.  The Museum of London has expressed interest in displaying the Homeland archive as part of its collection.

London International Festival of Theatre Commission.

Residency (Bulgaria, 1999)
One week working with a group of students from across different theatre disciplines, investigating the intellectual and emotional relationships between art and ecology, social issues and the imagination.  The project worked to re-imagine the immediate university environment, which included a refugee hostel, and considerable issues of water and other pollution.  Za Zemiata (For the Earth), a Sofia-based NGO collaborated with the company on this project, which was funded by the Soros Foundation, which works to promote democracy in the east of Europe.

Partner:  Theatre Department of New Bulgarian University, Sofia.

Killing Us Softly
Day-long performance and live music workshops with individuals from various professional backgrounds addressing the psychology of corporate thinking (1999-ongoing).

Residency
Interdisciplinary arts and environmental sciences project (Pittsburgh, USA, summer 2004).

Jane Trowell
PLATFORM
7 Horselydown Lane
Bermondsey
London SE1 2LN

T +44 (0) 20 7403 3738
F +44 (0) 20 7403 5896

E info@platformlondon.org

“A seminal arts and environment organisation developing an innovative programme of work in liaison with specialists from other disciplines e.g. engineers, technologists, as well as creative artists.”
London Arts Board, Revenue and Fixed Term Clients 1997/98 By Borough

“PLATFORM really does impress me as an interdisciplinary team who know where they are going and what they want to do. Their combination of artistic and ecological sensibilities is truly leading-edge, and their work has a national – indeed planetary – significance.”
Robert Hewison, The Sunday Times

“They encourage us to make leaps of the imagination and think about a society based on a culture of sustainability and mutual respect.”
John Heyderman, London Cyclist magazine

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