PhD Research
I'm going back to school!
Between October 2022 and September 2027, thanks to a post graduate research scholarship from the School of Performance and Cultural Industries, I will be joining the University of Leeds Doctoral College as a part time PhD student. This page documents my PhD Research into sustainable puppetry practice and uses of puppetry in climate change activism settings
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I am researching Sustainable Puppetry Practices: The Communicative Efficacy of Climate Change Themed Puppetry in Public Space.
Sustainable Puppetry Practices is a practice-led, research project that investigates the Communicative Efficacy of Climate Change Themed Puppets in Public Space. The research draws upon live performance examples created during a practice as research investigation p (Gaia and Maia, by Bev Adams 2025/6) and from field work (The Herds by The Walk Productions, 2025) to explore how:
- Interactive puppets and objects communicate climate change messages in outdoor spaces
- Puppets, from large to miniscule, disrupt the everyday use of public space
- The puppet performances of Gaia and Maia and The Herds enable the audience to re-evaluate their socio-ethical relationship with the planet.
Research Contexts
- My 30 years+ experience as a practitioner
- A call for stories and imagination in climate change communications
- Activism and artivism
- Puppets as street theatre
- The more than human - indigenous cultures, animism, ubuntu and ecology
- Practice as Research, ethnography and auto-ethnography
Go to fieldwork for case study - Puppeteering with THE HERDS
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