ARAB PUPPETRY HERITAGE

Exploring how objects connect across borders, boundaries and difference. 

Objects Without Borders is a practice-based research project that  investigates the role of puppetry and object performance in connecting  people across borders, boundaries and differences. The project draws on  the knowledge and experience of people living on and between the borders  and boundaries of society, including refugees and people from deprived  communities.

We know how powerful puppetry and object performance  can be in applied theatre and arts contexts. What we want to get at  through this project is: How do objects help us to cross boundaries?  What are the differences and unique benefits in the ways that  objects help us connect across boundaries of communication, identity and  communities? What are the objects doing for us? 

The project ran  six pilot sessions over Zoom between May-July 2021, connecting artists,  community theatre facilitators and puppeteers from Jordan, the Czech  Republic and the UK. Participants included Seenaryo, a UK NGO working in  Jordan; Dafa Puppet Theatre from Prague; Theatre Orchard from  Weston-super-Mare, UK; Wattle and Daub from Bristol (UK); Bristol-based  producer Rachel McNally; and Sam the Artist, a Palestinian refugee  visual calligraphy artist based in Bristol. 

Across the six  sessions each of us shared our existing creative practice, used objects  to get to know each other, played with objects within and across the  digital space, and collectively created an object-based devising  process.