Dr Carrie Westwater
Lecturer (Teaching and Research)
- westwaterca1@cardiff.ac.uk
- 07447 454 603
- Room 1.43, Two Central Square, Central Square, Cardiff, CF10 1FS
- Available for postgraduate supervision
Overview
I am a Lecturer (Teaching & Research) in the field of Creative and Cultural Industries with a special focus on Human Rights, spatial and social justice and participatory arts. I am most interested in theatre and film that either function as tools to address complex societal issues, or represent them.
As a critical arts based researcher I engage in the arts and heritage sector, and the policy surrounding participation.Theatre Reportage, Site Based Arts Interventions, Pop Ups, Arts Activisim, Participation and Community Engagement.
After graduating drama school in 2001 I worked as an actor, predominantly doing Shakepeare in Scotland. My academic career only began when I decided to focus on theatre direction. As an undergrad at University of Glasgow, I studied Comparative Literature and Slavonic Studies ( mostly Communist and Post Communist theatre and film). This degree was followed by a Masters in Film Journalism (with a focus on Afgan, Iranian, Iranian-Kurdish and Turkish-Kurdish Film) which led to me joining JOMEC to complete my PhD. It was during my doctorate that I was able to bring together all the aspects of my career in the arts, my interest in human rights and enquiry into participatory methods of democratisation and spatial justice.
My thesis, The Othering Musuem: How Power Performs in Co-Curatorial Participation, 2013-2020 examined the language and prcesseses of co-curatorial participation whilst also testing out a method of non-selective curation, I had been working on in my arts practice.
I am currently coordinator for the thrid year undergraduate module Cultural and Creative Industries and coordinator for three of the core modules on the MA. Furthermore, I also co-cordinate Media Scholarship with Dr Tom Albeson.
Biography
As a professional artist and academic, I began my career in theatre performing Shakespeare with Glasgow Repertory Co. I then continued to be a maker of theatre, film and creative site responsive storytelling, using multi-platform methods. This work saw me incorprate a small theatre company, Theatre Found Limited, in 2007. With this company I worked internationally with other activist theatre such as Teatro di Nascosto and Belarus Free Theatre with whom I still have strong connections.
I moved to South Wales in 2013 to complete my PhD in arts and heritage participation and have been working on various projects, with a variety of local companies, since: National Museum Wales (Museum Lates: SPACE), Creative Cardiff (Festival of Voice), Cardiff University (Wales for Peace and The Voices Project), tactileBosch (Garden of Earthly Delights, 2016; Lost Vegas Hotel 2017; Basement Borsht, 2018; Jubilee, 2018), Republic of the Imagination (Gravida, 2018); Women Representing Women, 2018), Magpies Immersive Events (Midsummer Nights Dream, 2018; Hub Festival Cabaret Caravan, 2018).
At the beginning of my career I adapted Classic, Central and East European texts for performance in contemporary multicultural Britain. This found me directing several plays (in translation) and working with Scottish Refugee Council on a number of performance projects highlighting the experiences of asylum seekers and refugees (Antigone in New York ( 2008), The Inquisitor ( 2009), The Umbilical Cord ( 2010) and A View from Here ( 2013).
My other intercultural work has largely been with my academic head on. I was commissioned by University of Glasgow to create a performance based interactive training session based on Shaun Tan's The Arrival which presented how power can perform in a translation setting as racist. I also co-created the CurioUS learning programme with Glasgow Museums which became a programme that enabled an increased empathy between refugees and non- refugees through the use of musuem objects.
I graduated drama school in 2001 before completing an MA Honours in Comparative Literature and Slavonic Studies; a Masters in Film Journalism and a Doctorate in the practical application of arts and heritage participatory language and its effect on participation.
Teaching
I have been teaching in JOMEC since 2015 and am currently module coordinator for Creative and Cultural industries (3rd yr. Undergraduate module) and for three of the core modules on the MA. This role involves the design and delivery of teaching and learning materials, the design of assessment, marking and second marking and student support through teaching 'face to face' and online.
I am currently applying for my Fellowship of Higher Education ( FHEA).
Secondly this semseter I am co-module coordinator with Dr Tom Albeson on Media Scholarship (1st Year Undergraduate module).
I have also taught on the following undergraduate modules.
‘Understanding the Digital Society through the lens of Charlie Brookers Black Mirror’ (3rd yr.)
‘Issues in TV Production’(2nd yr.)
‘Doing Media Research’ (2nd yr.)
'Introduction to Media Audiences’ (1st yr.)
‘Advertising in the Consumerist Age’(1st yr.)
‘Understanding Journalism’(1st yr.)
‘History of Mass Communication’(1st yr.)
‘Representations’(1st yr.)
Research Interests:
My research interests could broadly be considered as enquiries into use of film, theatre and community arts participation as arts activism. With a predominant focus on theatre and film I aim to analyse the texts, the audience engagement and psychogeography that the 'event' and / or text has to offer? Furthermore I aim to investigate the participatory opportunities and the challenges the actor/ audiences may experience in engaging and accessing these events/ texts. I find this work fascinating and am interested in how the site and method of engagement can be a metaphor and a tool to inform social change as an embodied experiential platform.
My research will investigate arts installation, interventions and happenings and how theatre and film production and participation are effective conduits for raising awareness of human rights issues, locally and globally.
This research interest finds me enquiring into aspects of identity, difference, access and representation, participation and democracy, social group dynamics and spatial justice. I often find myself moving between cultural, critical and film theory whilst engaging in policy and language that negates social justice.
Current Research Projects:
Clwstwr R&D "Heritage Walkers".
Heritage Walkers is in partnership with National Slate Museum. I was awarded Clwstwr funding to conduct an R&D on a proposed outdoor walking experience that harnesses digital and screen methods of interpretations. through projections onto landscape and artifacts.
Imagine taking a walk around a museum site and along the way stories of the area appear as films projected onto forests, buildings and on water. As you, the 'Heritage Walker' take your journey you are on a quest to experience visual and auditory heritage interpretations that appear in spaces to accentuate the site experientially. The screen based materials are not experienced in your digital device but are projected out from the device into the space before you and onto relevant objects, layering the interpretations poetically.
Our hope is to animate outdoor environments to engage families and international visitors in the landscape and heritage of Wales, through creative and interactive means. Think Pokémon Go meets the Ramblers.
Heritage Walkers is a Clwstwr R&D project. Clwstwr is an innovation programme for the South Wales screen sector, funded by the Creative Industries Clusters Programme which is part of the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy.
Gravida, with the Gravida Collective.
As initially writer in residence and one of the dancers involved in the R&D performance of 2018 (funded by Arts Council Wales) I have been working with choreographer Aleksandra Nikolajev Jones and dramaturg Jelena Vaksonovic to explore maternal mental health and the mother/artist (mother/ dancer) in performance.
We are continuing to develop Gravida as an ongoing performance and will be performing again early 2022. I have recently written a chapter on a the performance at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff in 2018. This is for forthcoming Routledge publication called Mothering: Processes, Practices and Performance (ed) Lena Simic and Emily Underwood-Lee. Our chapter “Gravida, the weight and wait of together/ apartness: a performance of pregnancy to mothering” focusses on "Staging Pregnancy" and maternal mental health in performance by mother/ dancers. As one of the dancers this chapter is somewhat auto-ethnographic and explores the choreo-dramaturgical decisions made in production.
Previous Research Projects:
Festival of Voice (2018) with Creative Cardiff
I was co-investigator under the direction of Sara Pepper and Professor Justin Lewis to evaluate the audience satisfaction and engagement in the Festival of Voice (2018). A short film was developed on the findings by me and Danial Alford.
The Voices Project of War and Peace, with Cardiff (JOMEC), Birmingham and Newcastle Universities
As research assistant to Dr Jenny Kidd and Dr Joanne Saynor, I visited most of the installation sites for the 1418 Now, Weeping Window and Wave Poppies Tour of Britain (Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red). My role was to interview visitors to the installation on how the poppies may or may not initiate thoughts on remembrance. This project has been longitudinal between 2013 and 2018 and featured as one of the REF Impact case studies earlier this year.
Wales for Peace (HLF Evaluation) with Dr Jenny Kidd, JOMEC and the Temple of Peace, Cardiff
As research assistant working again with Dr Jenny Kidd, I conducted ‘deep dive’ case studies’, interviews and focus groups for the Wales for Peace Project interim and final report for HLF. The interim report below can be found here http://www.walesforpeace.org/wfp/news-article.html?id=84
The Letterbox Club, Booktrust Cymru
I was lead investigator conducting a series of interviews and analysis of data to evaluate The Letterbox Club programme which is a Booktrust initiative that gifts books to children. Letterbox Club gifts books to ‘looked after children’ in foster families. The books arrive through the post, addressed to them personally. I analysed conversations from several focus groups and semi-structured interviews with foster care service providers, social work and Flying Start staff across Wales. The final report can be found here: https://www.booktrust.org.uk/globalassets/resources/research/research-with-practitioners-in-wales---supporting-foster-carers-with-reading-with-their-children---final.pdf
Civic Centre Participation, with Cardiff Participatory Network and Mari Lowe.
This project looked at how the public move around and engage in the Civic Centre of Cardiff using surveys (face to face and online) and a mapping individuals routes to work and from educational establishments.