The network is supported by the following research groups/institutes, policymakers, NGOs and members of the arts community

Stephen Bottoms is Professor of Contemporary Theatre and Performance at the University of Manchester. His books include Small Acts of Repair: Performance, Ecology and Goat Island (with Matthew Goulish, Routledge, 2007), Sex, Drag and Male Roles: Investigating Gender as Performance (with Diane Torr, University of Michigan Press, 2010), and Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement (UMP, 2004). In 2012, he co-edited the “On Ecology” edition of Performance Research (17.4), which arose in part from the AHRC network project for which he was Principal Investigator, “Reflecting on Environmental Change through Site-Based Performance” (www.performancefootprint.co.uk). In 2012-13, Steve also led the network’s follow-on project “Multi-Story Water”, as project manager and lead writer-deviser (www.multi-story-shipley.co.uk).

Stefhan Caddick works from his studio near Abergavenny and teaches on the Creative Sound and Music course at University of Wales, Newport. He works in video, installation and performance and often presents his work as a one-off event, usually outside and frequently after dark. Many works are constructed with materials sourced from institutions, communities and individuals, an inherently collaborative process which challenges the idea of the artist as sole creator. Recent projects include Pickle Line for Outcasting Fourth Wall Film Festival, Ghost Parade for Adain Avion, part of the London 2012 Festival and The Nihilists, a night-time event on a mountain near Abergavenny. For further information on Stefhan’s work please visit: http://stefhancaddick.co.uk

Gareth Clark is best known as one half of Mr and Mrs Clark, a company he established with Marega Palser. The Clarks have presented their unique brand of dance theatre across the UK, Europe and North America. He continues to develop his own creative journey, undertaking guest lecturing roles at universities in Wales and through community workshops and performance pieces for Wales Millennium Centre, Cape Town Opera, Volcano and Hijinx Theatre Companies. These roles have allowed him to use many of the skills developed whilst working in the South Wales valleys as a Youth Gateway worker for Careers Wales. Now using these experiences, Gareth develops shows where the performers are encouraged to contribute their own voice, thus adding a personal layer of investment that becomes compelling to watch. This was his inspiration to create The Meeting in 2012 after an initial research and development project in Newport that was supported by National Theatre Wales. The Meeting directly reflected the words and thoughts of the community through an exhibition, a tour and a performance based on the City as it stood at the time. Gareth is a founding member of Newport International Airspace (NIA), which was established as a result The Meeting. He lives in Newport, likes football and is a fair weather cyclist.

Jony Easterby investigates the boundaries between raw elemental materials, sound technology, composition, landscape and architecture. A breadth of expertise in a wide range of artistic skills has found him developing projects as varied as the construction of intricate sound sculptures, audio visual installations, architectural constructions and the artistic direction of large-scale performance projects. Permanent sound and sculpture installations can be found under the White Cliffs of Dover, Cheltenham, Maesteg, Grizedale Forest, The Wolds Way and Ashbourne Derbyshire. He has worked as a composer and sound designer for Red Earth, NVA, and the National Theatre of Wales.  He is currently developing a pilot for a new collaborative work ‘For the Birds’ in collaboration with the RSPB, National Theatre of Wales and Aberystwyth Arts Centre. His work has been exhibited and performed in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. He is a participating artist in the acclaimed touring shows ‘Powerplant’ and ‘Audible Forces’. He recently produced and directed the epic show ‘Sounding the River’ exploring and reinterpreting landscape and ecology of a 1.5km river corridor in Birmingham, working alongside eight artists for the creation of 23 separate performances and installations. For more about Jony’s work see: www.jonyeasterby.co.uk

David Harradine is co-founder and artistic director of Fevered Sleep, making projects in performance, installation, film, publication and digital art. His practice is primarily concerned with place, weather, landscape and light.  He has a doctorate in Performance Studies from the University of London, and has taught in the UK and abroad, as well as leading workshop and mentoring projects for emerging artists.  From 2005 – 2009, David was Research Fellow in Performance at the University of Winchester, where he investigated the links between light, photography and performance.  From 2009 to 2011 he was a Leverhulme Artist in Residence in the School of Art, Design & Media at the University of Brighton, collaborating on a project that explored visualisations of climate change.  He is currently Visiting Research Fellow in Interdisciplinary Practice at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London. For further information on David’s work please visit: feveredsleep.co.uk

Lee Hassall is a sculptor who has exhibited performance, installation, and film work both nationally and internationally. He is Course Leader in Fine Art at the University of Worcester. Since 2010, he has been working on a PhD in performance in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television at Aberystwyth University. The PhD is practice-based and explores questions to do with what Lee defines as ‘grotesque sublimity’ in the work of the artist Thomas Rowlandson. Lee’s study draws on his own practice as a sculptor and performance maker. ‘This PhD is about Landscape – more accurately, it is a PhD about picturesque landscape and what it means to ‘fissure’ that landscape and perform whiteness. For further information on Lee’s work please visit: http://www.worcester.ac.uk/discover/lee-hassall.htmlhttp://www.curatingthecosmos.com/#Lee-HassallThe-Future-of-Ruins-Hashima

Wallace Heim writes and researches on performance and ecology, and she does this in many places. Her work is to analyse the experience of performance, art and social practice arts, to consider how these events shape ecological and social understanding, and to develop critical frameworks appropriate to the experience of culture in the time of climate instability. Her current work is on art and environmental conflict; on sense and anonymous species; on how a place can learn; and on emotions. Her academic slant is philosophical, but she works across disciplines. She co-edited the Ashden Directory; participated in the AHRC ‘Site, Performance and Environmental Change Network’; co-curated the conference/event BETWEEN NATURE; and co-edited Nature Performed. She taught on the ‘Art & Ecology’ MA at Dartington College of Arts and is an FRSA. Her first career was as a set designer in theatre and television, and, with others, started the Gate Theatre, London. For more information on Wallace’s work, please visit www.wallaceheim.com

Jane Lloyd Francis is a Project Director, Collaborator and Instigator of Creative Events while also managing a small organic farm near Machynlleth. Jane directed and rode in Equilibre Horse Theatre from 1993 to 2008 while also organising many associated work shops, processions, readings and exhibitions generated by the work of the company during this period. Since 2010 Jane has been developing a new project called FFynhonnell/Source, a multidisciplinary exploration of lost well sites in the Dyfi Biosphere. The project seeks to provoke an examination of human relationship to water sources, the ritual, magic, healing and basic need  to sustain life while also questioning whether it matters that most people are reliant on unknown corporations to provide their water, from sites they no longer recognise. The stories and research associated with discovering lost well sites in the locality have resulted in two devised theatre performances, Gwrando ar y Dwr performed at Aberystwyth Arts Centre and a site specific piece devised and performed at the Green Man Festival in August 2013, an art installation as part of Tional/The Gathering at Sabhal Mor Ostaig College on the Isle of Skye in July and more recently FFynhonnau an installation and photography exhibition, in collaboration with photographer Keith Morris, at Penrallt Book Shop in Machynlleth.

John McGrath is the founding Artistic Director of National Theatre Wales, where he has worked with a wide range of artists and partner companies to develop an award-winning mix of work in theatres and site-specific locations across the country. For National Theatre Wales he has directed A Good Night Out in the Valleys by Alan Harris (in five Valleys Miners’ Institutes), Love Steals Us From Loneliness by Gary Owen (staged in a Bridgend rock club), The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning by Tim Price (with every show live-streamed and hyperlinked online) and In Water I’m Weightless by Kaite O’Reilly (at the Wales Millennium Centre and South Bank Centre) as part of the 2012 Festival, the Finale of the Cultural Olympiad. John has also worked as a theatre director in New York, London and Manchester. From 1999-2008 he was Artistic Director of Contact, Manchester. He has published a book about art in the surveillance age, Loving Big Brother: Performance, Privacy and Surveillance Space and in 2005 was awarded the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) Cultural Leadership Award. For more about John’s work see: http://community.nationaltheatrewales.org/profile/JohnMcGrath

Fern Smith was born in London and now lives in Swansea, South Wales. After studying for a degree in Psychology and a Masters in Industrial Relations she formed Volcano Theatre Company with Paul Davies in the 1980’s. Since then Fern has performed, directed and taught workshops for Volcano and as a freelancer nationally and internationally for over 25 years. Fern is also a holistic massage therapist, craniosacral therapist, Sesame practitioner and a Relational Dynamics coach. In 2009/10 Fern was awarded the Arts Council of Wales Fellowshi on the Clore Leadership Programme. As Clore Fellow she co-developed Emergence-Eginiad an arts and sustainability initiative for Wales. Since then she has worked as Creative Producer on Emergence. Emergence brings artists and creative practitioners together, creating events and opportunities to inspire, empower and inform them to take a leadership role in developing ‘creative practice for a sustainable future’. In 2013 Fern left Volcano as a fulltime founder member and is now associate artist with the company. She is continuing to follow where her heart and where synchronicity leads her: www.volcanotheatre.co.uk; www.emergence-uk.org

After graduating with a BSc. in environmental biology, Rhodri Hugh Thomas spent thirteen years freelance in the performing arts. He worked with all the main English language Welsh theatre companies of the ninteen nineties. He was part of the regular cast of the much loved BBC sitcom Satellite City written by Boyd Clack. He also performed in numerous radio plays as well as TV and film. In 2003 he left the arts and after gaining an MSc. in Environmental Management worked for The University of Glamorgan, Environment Agency Wales and Forum for The Future. He is currently the Training and Development Manager for Cynnal Cymru-Sustain Wales. He still writes, performs and produces his own work when time allows. He co-developed the Emergence initiative with Fern Smith and is currently part of the Emergence Creu Cymru project team: this aims to reduce the environmental impacts of theatres and arts venues in Wales while emphasising their social and economic significance. He is studying for a PGCE in adult education and develops and delivers work-based sustainable development training.

Hailing from Miami and now based in Cardiff, Carolina Vasquez is a filmmaker. She’s passionate about sharing a good story, and her work crosses lines between theatre, documentary and the web. Commissions include filmmaking on multi-platform projects for Royal Opera House, Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru, National Theatre Wales, and Cynnal Cymru. She graduated with a MFA in Media from Slade, UCL, London. To read more about Carolina’s work vist: www.carolinavasquez.com

Movement artist Simon Whitehead works from his base in rural West Wales. Since 2000 he has developed a body of work from pedestrian practices; usually made live at walking pace his works are place- sensitive and often involve a subsequent process of reconstruction through the body, live performance, dance, sound and film. In 2002 in 2mph Simon walked the drovers roads from his home in west Wales to Smithfield market London, a 3 week performance. He was visiting Artist at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park 2004-06, where he developed ‘walks to illuminate’, a series of nocturnal walks for the public, culminating in a solo gallery show of performance artifacts. Later in 2006 he produced the book WALKING TO WORK (publ. Shoeless.)Over the last 18 years he has collaborated closely with Melbourne -based sound artist Barnaby Oliver. They recently completed Pings, an online performance project and continue to embark on spontaneous projects. Simon is a founder member of Wales based itinerant artist group ointment. He completed LOUPHOLE in March 2010, an off- site performance commission at Oriel Davies Newtown, which involved the first public howl in the UK and a collaboration with the Newtown silver band, this was partnered with a gallery- based retrospective of screen- based and performance artifacts, titled Afield. Loup(2) was resumed in Bristol this September in the festival walking in the City. Simon is presently pursuing approaches to working in his immediate locality, bringing his practice home and developing ideas and events in conversation within his community and rural valley. In 2012- 2013 he was recipient of a major Creative Wales Award from the Arts Council of Wales, during this year he developed collaborations with writer Carl Lavery, New York Dance Artist Jennifer Monson and curated a weekend performance event in his home village of Abercych, in Maynard, come home he premiered a series of solo movement studies alongside the work of 10 invited artists. He lives with his partner and two young daughters in the North Pembrokeshire. Simon is also a craniosacral therapist and a Creative Fellow in Performance at Aberystwyth University: www.untitledstates.net

• Cardiff University – Understanding Risk Group; Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Sustainable Places Research Institute
• Aberystwyth University – Department of Theatre, Film and Television; Department of Geography and Earth Sciences and the Performing Ecology and Environment Series
• Welsh Government
• Cardiff Transitions
• Philosophy Cafe