Abstract
This chapter considers cultural and performance events and activities hosted in abandoned factories and workplaces ruined as a consequence of economic austerity and company relocation or closure. Following conversations with theatre makers and art activists in Greece, South Wales, Scotland and Poland, the author describes and reflects upon occupations and performances in Athens, Thessaloniki, Elefsina, Cardiff and in the closed or run-down shipyards of Glasgow (Govan) and Gdansk. Building upon the idea of ‘occupation’, Murray particularly looks at the work of the Athens-based Mavili Collective and Mike Pearson’s large-scale site-specific work with Brith Gof (1981–2004) in South and West Wales. The chapter describes and examines collaborative creative partnerships between artists, activists and academics in the abandoned or closed shipyards of Gdansk and Govan.
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- 1.
Topos: from Greek Topoi meaning a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in literary or artistic work.
- 2.
Syntagma is Athens’ central square, bordered on its eastern side by the old Royal Palace which has housed the Greek Parliament building since 1934.
- 3.
Documenta was founded in 1955 as an exhibition of modern art which would take place every five years in the German city of Kassel. Its impulse was to re-establish Germany as a country which could celebrate and embrace contemporary art after Nazism. In 2017, for the first time, Documenta was held jointly in two cities, Kassel and Athens.
- 4.
Apostolos Lampropoulos is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne. His paper (from which I quote) was later published in a collection of essays drawn from the conference and entitled Ruins in the Literary and Cultural Imagination published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2019.
- 5.
Although Brith Gof closed in 2004, Pearson’s work has continued and sometimes as Artistic Director for National Theatre of Wales’ productions.
- 6.
Clifford McLucas (1945–2002) trained as an architect, was a visual theorist and scenographer who worked as co-director with Pearson on a number of Brith Gof projects.
- 7.
Michael Shanks (1959–) is an archaeologist who has collaborated with Brith Gof on a number of projects, was co-author (with Pearson) of Theatre/Archaeology (2001) and is currently Chair of Classics at Stanford University in California.
- 8.
Mike Brookes is an artist, theatre designer and director. In 1997, he co-founded with Mike Pearson the collaboration they call ‘Pearson/Brookes ’.
- 9.
Llandysul is a village near to Esgair Faith.
- 10.
Wetherspoons, founded in 1979, is a huge chain of pubs, bars and hotels across the United Kingdom. Its stated aims are to sell alcohol as cheaply as possible to its 2 m weekly customers.
- 11.
UK Company Wrights & Sites, formed in 1997, comprises Cathy Turner, Stephen Hodge, Phil Smith and Simon Persighetti. Its work is focused on peoples’ relationships to places, cities, landscape and walking. They employ disrupted walking strategies as tools for playful debate, collaboration, intervention and spatial meaning-making.
- 12.
Fablevision is a cultural social enterprise based in Govan and Paisley whose members (individually and collectively) share values and working practices. For over 30 years, Fablevision has supported emerging cultural social entrepreneurs/enterprises in Govan and elsewhere in Scotland.
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Murray, S. (2020). Ruins of Capital. In: Performing Ruins. Performing Landscapes. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40643-1_7
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