Remembering Hull: Performing Autobiographical Memory As a Strategy for Placemaking
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Remembering Hull: Performing Autobiographical Memory as a Strategy for Placemaking Wayne Steven Jackson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1462-1188 A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of London South Bank University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2018 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND PUBLICATION INFORMATION The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. Sections of this thesis are published as a chapter in a Digital Media and Learning series book and will be referenced in the bibliography as: Jackson, W. S. (2019) ‘From the Screens to the Streets: Translating Digital Engagement into Performance Practice to Facilitate Multiple Contributions to Place Making’, in Pyles, D. G., Rish, R. M., & Warner, J. (eds.) Negotiating Place and Space through Digital Literacies. Information Age Publishing: North Carolina 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I begin by thanking my supervisory team, Doctor Maria Chatzichristodoulou and Doctor Elena Marchevska, for their wisdom, patience, and unwavering guidance. I am privileged to have worked with supervisors that have passion for, and belief in, my work and I am sincerely grateful. I am also grateful to the School of Cultural Industries at London South Bank University and The Arden School of Theatre at UCEN Manchester for supporting this research. I am indebted to the people of Hull, to those who submitted to the website, who gave their time willingly to participate in the workshops, and who journeyed with me for a performance of Now|Then; without your contributions, this research would not have been possible. I also thank one particular Hullian, Christopher Benstead, for his expertise and enthusiasm in designing such a fitting soundtrack. I thank my colleagues for supporting my practice in a number of ways, and the students of BA (Hons.) Theatre and Performance, past and present, who have been a welcoming soundboard for my thoughts and ideas. Particular thanks to Deborah Newton and Belinda Grantham for the numerous Ph.D. discussions; your insights and advice have been invaluable to the shaping and developing of my thinking. To those family and friends who play central characters in my autobiographical memories, thank you for sharing this journey with me over the past four years. Specifically, I wish to thank my mum Lorraine, sister Gemma, niece Matilda, nephews Oliver and Albert, and brother-in-law (and cameraman) Lee for their ongoing support, reassurance, and unrelenting love. And finally, special thanks to my driver, co-performer, and dad, Steven – I hope you remember Now|Then with as much fondness and pride as I do. 2 ABSTRACT Government-initiated schemes of cultural regeneration aim to improve both internal and external perceptions of a city, and as such offer the potential to galvanise renegotiations of place. However, I problematise the single narrative of a city that this top-down approach projects and promotes; hegemonic cultural discourse can often override, or forget, collective memory. In this research project, situated within Kingston upon Hull’s transformative year as the United Kingdom’s 2017 City of Culture, I apply existing knowledge within the field of theatre studies, memory studies, and placemaking to produce two interconnected outcomes. Firstly, through questioning how memory can be performed as a process, I establish performance strategies that avoid representing the past as a fixed version of events. In doing so, I expose approaches to performance practice that invite and support autobiographical remembering in order to effectively facilitate, and favour, individual reconstructions of the experienced past. Secondly, I establish the performance of memory as a tool with which to practice place. My research contributes to the field of performance and autobiography and its application within projects that aim to reach, encourage, and effect public engagement with cultural regeneration. Ultimately, I present the performance of autobiographical memory as a means of activating a city’s inhabitants to contribute to, and lead, a process of placemaking in order to regain ownership of collective memory from the control of those in positions of cultural and political power. 3 FIGURES 1 – A map to show Hull’s location and neighbouring area in the Northeast of England. Downloaded from <http://w0.fast-meteo.com/locationmaps/Hull.10.gif> 2 – A map to show the borders and boundaries of Hull’s seven wards and their neighbourhoods. Downloaded from <http://www.hullcc.gov.uk/pls/xximages/docs/area_map.gif> 3 – An image of the Wall of Memories to show the photographs that were uploaded as part of the online memory submissions. Screenshot from <http://waynestevenjackson.co.uk/index.php> 4 – A photograph of the live launch at Hull History Centre. Original Image 5 – A graph to show the number of memory submissions that included a specific date. Original Graph 6 – An image of the online memory submission form. Screenshot from <http://waynestevenjackson.co.uk/index.php/welcome/text> 7 – An image of the Map of Memories to show the locations of the online memory submissions, which are signified by a feather. Screenshot from <http://waynestevenjackson.co.uk/index.php/map> 8 – A graph to show the spread of ages of the workshop participants. Original Graph 9 – A diagram to show the schedule of workshop tasks and their objectives. Original Diagram 10 – An image of the Now|Then poster. Original Image 11 – A photograph of the workshop participants discussing their memories at Alexandra Hall. Original Photograph 12 – A photograph to show the series of fragments involved during the workshop at Victoria Docks Village Hall. Original Photograph 13 – A photograph showing the starting and finishing position of the taxi at ‘oss Wash. Original Photograph 14 – A still image from the Now|Then promotional video. Original Image 15 – An image from the practical outcome to show the line of photographs. Original Image 16 – A photograph of the performance introduction at ‘oss Wash. Original Photograph 4 17 – A photograph to show the feathers and memory cards left by the audience at Queen’s Gardens. Original Photograph 18 – A photograph showing the audience members leaving their feathers and memory cards at Hull New Theatre. Original Photograph 19 – Two pie charts to show the categorisation of responses on the Now|Then memory cards based on Agnew’s place construction, where sense of place has been further categorised by the content of the responses. Original Graph 20 - A Venn diagram to show my three-stage model for performing memory as a process. Original Diagram 21 - A Venn diagram to show my three-stage model for establishing the performance of memory as a strategy to challenge hegemonic cultural discourse. Original Diagram 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 2 ABSTRACT 3 FIGURES 4 FOREWORD: WHILST I REMEMBER 9 MEMORY ONE: NAMING A CITY OF CULTURE 10 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 11 1.1. The Research Project 11 1.1.1. Project Overview 11 1.1.2. Key Concepts 13 1.1.2.1. Performance 14 1.1.2.2. Memory as a Process 15 1.1.2.3. Placemaking 17 1.1.2.4. Sense of Place 18 1.1.2.5. Place Attachment 20 1.2. Aims and Objectives 22 1.3. Hull: Place, Home, Venue 24 1.3.1. As a Place 24 1.3.2. As a Home 27 1.3.3. As a Venue 29 1.4. The 2017 UK City of Culture 32 1.4.1. The City of Culture Narrative 33 1.4.2. The Opening Season 38 1.4.3. Constructing and Adopting Imagined Identities 41 CHAPTER TWO: CONTEXTUAL REVIEW 46 2.1. Performance Studies: The Stability of Memory in Performance 46 2.1.1. The Ontology of Performance 47 2.1.2. Memory’s Presence in Performance 50 2.1.3. The Performance of Memory 52 2.1.4. Contextualising Intermedial Performance 56 2.1.5. Stabilising Live Performance 59 2.2. Memory Studies: Defining Autobiographical Memory as a Process 62 2.2.1. The Presence of Memory 63 2.2.2. Autobiographical Memory 65 2.2.3. Memory Reconstruction 66 2.2.4. Collective Memory 69 2.3. Placemaking: Destabilising Single Narratives 71 2.3.1. Placemaking from Above 72 2.3.2. Placemaking from Below 77 2.3.3. Placemaking in Flux 80 6 2.4. Performance, Memory, and Placemaking 82 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 84 3.1. Methodological Approaches 84 3.1.1. Practice as Research 84 3.1.2. Ethnography 87 3.1.3. Autoethnography 88 3.2. Research Methods 91 3.2.1. The Website 92 3.2.1.1. Location 93 3.2.1.2. Participants 93 3.2.1.3. Content 94 3.2.2. The Workshops 96 3.2.2.1. Location 97 3.2.2.2. Participants 99 3.2.2.3. Content 101 3.2.3. The Practical Outcome 104 3.2.4. Ethical Implications 107 CHAPTER FOUR: INTERPRETING MEMORY AS A PROCESS 113 4.1. Observing the Performance of Memory as a Process 113 4.1.1. Shared Remembering and Collective Memory 113 4.1.2. Fragmentation and Reconnection 117 4.1.3. Merging the Past and the Present 120 4.1.4. Negating the Need for Accuracy 122 4.2. Defining the Key Elements of Performing Memory as a Process 124 4.2.1. Performing Memory as the Past’s Present Moment 124 4.2.2. Performing Memory as Reconstructive 129 4.3. Autobiographical Remembering and Performance Practice 133 4.4. Contextualising the Practical Outcome 146 CHAPTER FIVE: PERFORMING MEMORY AS A PROCESS 150 5.1.