Introducing our Interdisciplinary Fellows in Residence
Posted on Tue 19 May
Watershed is excited to support two artists who will undertake a year of research activities as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company Interdisciplinary Fellowship (RSC IF) Programme.
This fellowship supports a year of research and development with both artists expanding on their current creative practice exploring themes of care and economies. They are being supported within our Pervasive Media Studio community to develop ideas, test work with audiences, and consider the future of creative systems and structures.
The Interdisciplinary Fellows are part of the Interdisciplinary Fellowship Programme launched by the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, funded by UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
The Fellowships form part of AHRC’s PORTIA (participatory and open research through technology in action) programme which seeks to create the spaces, places and platforms that enable creativity-led R&D to thrive.
Meet the Artists
Lindsey Dryden (she/her)
During the Fellowship, Lindsey is spending time undertaking research that asks: How can creative collaborators and cultural leaders practically embed the notion of Crip Time – a disabled-led approach to timeframes, that disrupts normative expectations around pace, productivity and value - into day-to-day work in purpose-driven independent filmmaking and the non-profit sector? Lindsey will conduct interviews and conversations, shaping case studies and a toolkit, that can be used by the creative sector beyond the IF Fellowship.
Lindsey says:
“This RSC IF Fellowship is an exciting opportunity for me to work with an innovative community to research, test and illuminate a form of glorious disruption that reframes our bodies’ role in creative and activist collaborations. Drawing on Crip expertise from past and present, it’s a framework to question how we can resist rigid schedules and ableist productivity norms in very practical terms. How can we craft embodied collaborations that centre wellbeing and sustainability, as well as creative excellence and productivity – against the context of socially designed and politically enforced normative expectations of our bodies, and our industries’ deadlines and budgets? This exploration of interdependence is not just about researching but also dreaming and remembering: bringing ancestral Crip knowledge together with expertise from contemporary disabled artists and non-profit workers as they daily navigate these questions.”
Lindsey is an Emmy® award-winning, Sundance-supported, and Oscar® shortlisted filmmaker and activist whose work spans cinema documentary, live action and animation. She centres radical and rebellious bodies, with a focus on queer and disabled perspectives, and she’s an advocate for caring and sustainable creative collaborations. Lindsey co-founded FWD-Doc: a global, intersectional community of disabled creators and allies that champions and elevates stories by, for, and about disabled people. She recently consulted on Deaf President Now! (Concordia Studio/AppleTV+), Heart of Invictus (Netflix/Violet Films), and led the creation of the FWD-Doc Toolkit for Inclusion & Accessibility: Changing the Narrative of Disability in Documentary Film (Doc Society/Netflix).
Amelia Winger-Bearskin (she/her, Seneca-Cayuga Nation)
During the Fellowship Amelia will explore how theatre can become a game-space to simulate and test new forms of economy, care and exchange. As part of this she will host a Goblin Market at First Friday in June - a participatory performance and game space, that will enable visitors to play in a living speculative economy. This work will explore what we can learn from playing an economy, how costume can act as a living ledger recording transactions of labour, lore, memory and desire, and delve into ways AI could be a collaborator, witness, storyteller or unreliable economist in this performance economy. Through this work Amelia hopes to uncover a more holistic understanding of value in the creative sector and explore how these insights could inform or challenge growth-oriented policy priorities.
Amelia says:
“As a Royal Shakespeare Company IF Fellow embedded at Watershed, I’m developing Goblin Market as a playable economy. It asks what happens when we stop describing systems of value and start playing them together. In that space, theatre becomes a way to test care, exchange, and meaning in real time.”
Amelia Winger-Bearskin is a Brooklyn-based artist who uses Artificial Intelligence as a creative medium and conceptual framework. Her practice addresses urgent global issues, from climate justice to homelessness, while revealing the moral codes that shape communities. Amelia is an associate professor of film and media studies at Hunter College in Manhattan, the founder of the AI Climate Justice Lab, the Talk To Me About Water Collective, and the Stupid Hackathon. Her work combines immersive storytelling and ethical AI to address climate change, housing, and the design of Indigenous-led systems of care and kinship. Her projects have been featured at the Sundance Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and the Whitney Museum. Through art, code, and collaboration, she builds new tools for justice and imagination.
About First Friday
You are welcome to join our Fellows at the Goblin Market First Friday takeover on Fri 5 June, 17:00-19:00. This in-person event in Pervasive Media Studio and where you can peruse the marketplace, play games, see performance and chat with people. No booking necessary, just turn up!