Zoë Svendsen

Zoë Svendsen

Zoë Svendsen directs the performing arts company METIS (www.metisarts.co.uk), making participatory theatre performances and installation works exploring contemporary political subjects, including the theatre show Love Letters to a Liveable Future (Cambridge Junction / Season for Change 2021); Factory of the Future, a video installation created in collaboration with architects, commissioned for the Oslo Architecture Triennale 2019; the Artsadmin Green Commission, WE KNOW NOT WHAT WE MAY BE (Barbican Centre 2018), a performance installation imagining alternative economic conditions for addressing climate crisis; World Factory, exploring consumer capitalism through the lens of the global textile industry (Young Vic and UK tour; shortlisted for the Berlin Theatertreffen Stückemarkt 2016); 3rd Ring Out, an emergency-planning-style ‘rehearsal’ for climate change (TippingPoint Commission Award; UK tour).

As dramaturg Zoë collaborates creatively on innovative productions of classic texts, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Measure for Measure and The Changeling (Young Vic); Miss Julie (Aarhus Theatre, Denmark); Macbeth and Arden of Faversham (Royal Shakespeare Company); Edward II (National Theatre). Her work has been developed through several artist residencies, including at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (2014-15); the Future Scenarios ‘networked residency’ (Jerwood Charitable Foundation, Open University, and Sheffield University, 2016-17); and at the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (2018-19).

Zoë lectures on drama and performance in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge, and is currently writing Theatre & Dramaturgy for the Palgrave Macmillan book series, Theatre &, for which she has been running workshops on dramaturgy for directors at the Young Vic, and writers at the Royal Court.

Instagram @metisprojectsUK
Twitter @metisprojects

Where to see


Estuary 2021 is made possible by

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