ResearchWorks: The Equitable Encounter: The Art of the One To One in Practice-As-Research

Transdisciplinary artists Dr Tōmei June Bacon and Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh bring their respective practice-based research, teaching, and artistic practice into dialogue with each other and the audience in this ResearchWorks session.

Dr Tōmei June Bacon is a Resident Researcher at Guildhall School and Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh is Postgraduate Researcher and Professor of Dramatic Writing also at Guildhall. 

They both met for the first time at Guildhall's De-Centre Gathering Event, sharing their respective lines of enquiry that come under a macro theme of inclusive, caring, diverse and equitable structures that ask broader theoretical and structural questions about the issues and implications of de-centring, socially engaged practices. 

There were three immediate things they interconnected as transdisciplinary artists:

1) The autobiographical and solo performance practice of Adrian Howells, Creative Fellow of the University of Glasgow 

2) A shared delight in haptic experiences that connect with nature

3) At times they both wear a sunflower lanyard

Taking these three strands, they will together interconnect and diverge with one another in this ResearchWorks event, co-hosted with the Guildhall De-Centre for Socially-Engaged Research and Practice.

Speakers:

Dr T J Bacon (she/they) is a trans-femme pansexual person with hidden disabilities. Her practice as an artist- philosopher foregrounds transgender studies, queer theory, crip theory and queer phenomenology to consider visual art, performance art, theatre, activism and curation. She has exhibited internationally for over 20 years, is the founder and artistic director of Tempting Failure and a PhD Advisor for the Trans Art Institute. She joins Guildhall School as Researcher in Residence.

Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh BSc., MLitt, MA, SFHEA is Professor of Dramatic Writing on the MA in Opera Making & Writing at Guildhall School and specialises in libretto, collaboration, and dramaturgy. Their critically acclaimed and award-winning international professional portfolio and arts-based research practice is socially informed and engaged, spanning opera, theatre, circus, literature, dance, museums and galleries, screen and digital spaces. She is an International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) and Arts Council England Grad Fellow and is a member of ISPA’s Governance Committee with a specialism in DEI Leadership. Nazli is the inaugural Postgraduate Researcher of Libretto at Guildhall School where her doctoral study engages with the opera Carmen and contemporary Iran.

Photo credit: Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh, Embodied Voices AHRC Project (Workshop), "Moral and political value of the embodied voice" Guildhall School, September 2024. Photographer credit: Leslie Deere
 

Guildhall School’s ResearchWorks is a programme of events centred around the School’s research activity, bringing together staff, students and guests of international standing. We run regular events throughout the term intended to share the innovative research findings of the School and its guests with students, staff and the public.