Ecoscenography in Action: Tanya Beer’s Living Stage
Season 4: Episode 11
The guests in our commercial series, are experts focused on how our collective system is organized. We’re not talking about which produce to pick at the grocery store – although these lifestyle choices are critical. Our guests in this second series play pivotal roles in the organization of our society, disrupting the economy at the institutional level and changing how products are imagined and created.
In this episode of Climify, Eric welcomes Dr. Tanya Beer, a seasoned stage designer and senior lecturer at Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University (Australia), to discuss her innovative approach to sustainable stage design. Tanya shares her journey into sustainable stage design, the creation of the term 'Ecoscenography,' and her pioneering project, the Living Stage, which combines horticulture, community engagement, and performance. The episode also highlights educational strategies to promote sustainability in design and the importance of questioning the environmental impact of one's work and passions.
After the interview, design researcher Jacqui Himmel joins Eric to unpack the episode providing the most important calls to action from the discussion that you can implement today!
About our guest
Dr. Tanja Beer is an award-winning ecological designer and community artist who is passionate about co-creating shared spaces for the benefit of the more-than-human world. Originally trained as a performance designer and theatre maker, Tanja’s work increasingly crosses many disciplines, often collaborating with landscape architects, urban ecologists, horticulturists and placemakers to inspire communication and action on ecological issues. Her most celebrated project is The Living Stage: a global initiative that combines spatial design, horticulture and community engagement to create recyclable, biodegradable, biodiverse and edible event spaces. Tanja is currently a Senior Lecturer in Design at the Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University (Australia) and the Co-Director of the Performance + Ecology Research Lab (P+ERL). Her pioneering concept of ecoscenography (ecological design for performance) has been featured in numerous programs, exhibitions, articles and platforms around the world. She is the author of Ecoscenography: An Introduction to Ecological Design for Performance (2021).
Links mentioned in this episode
Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University
Ecoscenography: An Introduction to Ecological Design for Performance
Music in this episode
Nature sound effect by bbc.co.uk – ©2023 BBC
Climify Theme Song by Casual Motive
The Season 4 Climify Team
Eric Benson (Host)
Cam Burkins (Producer)
Bhavna Bhavanishankar (Experience Researcher and Multisensory Educator)
Adam Dziaba (Designer)
Jacqui Himmel (Multimedia Journalist and Scriptwriter)
Abigail Zhuk (Design Researcher)
Climate Design Assignments
At the end of each episode, we ask our guests what their ideal climate design project would be. They have four weeks with a class full of design students. We translated their response into a project brief that you can use for your class.
