ABSTRACT
When artistic engagement occurs without shared mythic or cultural references are there dramaturgical tools that can help bridge the intercultural gaps? With this question in mind, I developed and have applied transcultural methods and exercises that employ archetypal iconography and universally understood values as a way to initiate artistic exploration. These methods focus on the self as creative resource and on articulating relationships with and understanding home. Much of my recent investigative and developmental work in this area was made possible by Common Plants: Cross Pollinations in Hybrid Reality, a multidisciplinary, transcultural, research-creation project funded by Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). I conceived and led this project as principle investigator from 2006–9.Common Plants cultivated the following dramaturgical principles:
creative resources reside within the self;
we must exercise our own voices, within our own context;
to affect change, we must identify and articulate who we are, where we are, and how we relate to our landscape;
we must engage with and speak to those outside of our context for our message to be heard;
listening is as important as speaking;
this project lives in a garden, where cross-pollination is vital to survival: art is the last line of defense in the war against cultural obliteration.
Common Plants engaged with groups of specifically located participants in geographically distant places, such as South Africa and Iqaluit, Nunavut in Canada’s Far North, and then linked their development process and creative outcomes through a dedicated website. Many examples of the variety of work undertaken and evolved during Common Plants may be viewed in their entirety at https://www.yorku.ca/gardens" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">www.yorku.ca/gardens.