2024

Spatula&Barcode collaborated with Jazmin Badong Llana to curate concurrent volumes of two journals on the theme of hunger: Global Performance Studies Vol. 6 No. 1–2 (online, open access) and Performance Research Vol. 28 Issue 7 (in print and online with restrictions LINK), released in 2024. Together, the 29 contributions address events in eighteen countries across six continents. A full list of essays and authors can be found at this link.

How does performance studies understand hunger—as somatic experience, performative agency, and socially produced cruelty? How can performance help us make sense of voluntary self-starvation and related phenomena? How can it critically engage with artistic representations of hunger and intervene in how hunger appears? Can hunger be engaged or deployed as well as represented? What can the arts contribute to hunger action?

Following the 2022 Performance Studies international conference (#27: Hunger) held in Manila, Philippines, Performance Research and Global Performance Studies agreed to publish concurrent issues on the same theme. The two share introductory material and thematic structure, while presenting distinct but conceptually linked content. Both issues feature sections on Context, Hunger Action, Self-Starvation, Representing Hunger, and Creative Interventions, including material developed from conference presentations alongside new work submitted in response to the joint editors’ call for submissions (pdf).