Rachel Clive
PhD candidate
r.clive.1@research.gla.ac.uk
I am an LKAS PhD student working across the College of Arts (Theatre Studies), the College of Social Sciences (Disability Studies) and the College of Science and Engineering (Cultural Geography and Geology). The PhD is focussing on Geodiversity and human difference: disability, landscape form and processes."
I am a freelance theatre practitioner, arts facilitator and writer with a particular interest in cross-art-form collaborative working practices. I have an MA (with Distinction) in Arts and Social Contexts from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and a PGCE (with Distinction) from the University of Strathclyde. I have worked, and made theatre/art with people in many diverse contexts including prisons, schools, gardens, colleges, resource centres, residential establishments and festivals.
I founded Theatre Arts Group, an experimental theatre ensemble for people with and without learning disabilities based at Tramway, and have worked for a wide range of organisations including Lapidus Scotland (Creative Words for Health and Well-Being), National Youth Theatre (I project managed and co-led their Scottish Open Access work for three years), and the Citizens' Theatre (helping establish and co-leading their integrated learning disability theatre work).
Research and Teaching Interests
My practice-based research at the University of Glasgow is primarily interested in developing new understanding and accounts of the relationships between humans and environments, with a particular focus on relationships between neurodiversity and geodiversity. It aims to help with the construction of a bridge between the environmental and disability movements, through developing a "normally different" (neurodivergent led) ecological performance practice which actively explores lived experiences of and relationships with landscape forms and processes. I am particularly interested in: bodyworlding/intercorporeality/synaethesia public-space arts work/landscape practices science-art collaborations ethics, activism and aesthetics power-nature-work discourses My theatre practice is particularly interested in the potentials of dialogical theatre, affect and relationality to explore the traditional performer/spectator divide in order to question dominant discourses, explore practices of interdependency and to promote human (and environmental) flourishing. Previous research has included: "The Trick is to Keep Writing" a project and programme of events between Lapidus Scotland and the University of Glasgow, exploring connections between creative writing and mental health. "Between Care and Control: Creative Spaces, Challenges and Change", a research project at the RCS bringing learning disabled and non learning disabled people together to identify ways forward nationally for disability arts policy and practice. "Prison labels, stigma and hope," a theatre practice research project at Glenochil Prison, in collaboration with the College Development Network and Education Scotland, to explore sex offenders anxieties/experiences of labelling and stigmatisation, bringing a variety of stakeholders together to discuss practical and emotional strategies to support rehabilitation. Teaching-wise, I contribute to the Honours "Applied Theatre" course and the Masters "Theatre Research Methods" course.
Keywords:
Climate ChangeDisability studiesEmbodimentLandscapeMental healthSensesTheatre