Virtual (2025)

What will healthcare look like in 500 years?

What if your heart could sing whilst it is being operated on?

In this 3-month development research for Theatre in the Mill, I joined a cohort of artists looking for creative ways to generate speculative visions of the future of our healthcare. 

I presented my process at New Work Festival at Theatre in the Mill, Bradford.

Through a process of literature research, practice and experiential workshops with communities in Stroud and Bristol, I asked what it is to explore one’s relationship to the stories and emotions that are held in non-human entities.

The research responded to a need for humans as a collective to process the world’s current ideas, fears and dreams about how we feel healthy.

Looking into research* around different indigenous writings about health as well as creative approaches in communication between communities, I explored how people might like to re-create rituals that connected us back to the original sense of “Virtual”.

“Virtual” as something ancient and embodied, rather than the disembodied kind that we currently have of it being married to digital technology and its exploitative power structures.

From here, there are threads of the research which I am looking to develop through unconventional approaches to storytelling, collective process, participatory immersive events.

With thanks to Algy Behrens for his visual and sound collaboration, mentorship from Anna Nazo, Erin & Edwina for photography & creative support, and the participants who offered their stories.

Supported by Theatre In The Mill

*’Quantum Dreaming’ by Ione
*’Making Kin With The Machines’ by Jason Edward Lewis, Noelani Arista, Archer Pechawis, Suzanne Kite