ABSTRACT
I am involved in a research project called In Place of War, and many of the comments I make here are also contained in two books from that project (see Thompson 2009; Thompson, Hughes and Balfour 2009). 1 As artists, we often look for ways to respond to contemporary conflicts within the histories of art-making within our own culture. The idea behind In Place of War is that, rather than searching for answers historically, we should explore geographically, looking at how artists in contemporary war settings are responding themselves. For me, the work started in northern Sri Lanka, training artists, community workers, and teachers to use theater with young people affected by the war in that region. One of the things that most impressed me was the sheer number of different theater organizations, visual artists, playwrights, and children’s theater workers in that particular war zone. It immediately suggested that, rather than going back into the history of British theater making to discover how artists should respond to new wars, we should learn from the wealth of knowledge internationally about how artists are responding to war.
