Live Art Development Agency

☀️ Summer at The Garrett Centre is here – Live Art Bookshop is back with the launch of Gina Pane: actions through time by Sophie Delpeux and Alice Maude-Roxby and Finnish performance art duo Kainulainen & Latva’s (@kainulainen_latva ) monograph Globus Hystericus. Delaine Le Bas (@dedelebas ) will be joined by long term collaborators Ronke Osinowo, Hḗrā Santos and Justin Langlands for We Together.........., an evening of conversation structured around performance texts and soundscapes that track the histories of their collaboration. Scales of Breathing is a participatory performance exploring eco-intelligence of more-than-human species from artists Youngsook Choi (@young.sook.choi ) and Sophie Seita (@sophieseita ), with Jaelee Kim and Rike Scheffler (@rikescheffler ). Join us for an evening of performance and film to raise funds to support the recovery of artist, curator, mentor and LGBTQ+ activist Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi, known as crazinisT artisT, (@crazinist_artist ) organised by Guilia Casalini (@queer___femme ), in collaboration with Aisha Shaibu-Lenoir (@aisha_shaibu_lenoir ), The Common Press (@thecommonpress ) and Ama Josephine B. Johnstone (@amajosephine ) 🔗 Explore the full programme via the link in bio

What is LADA’s Study Room? Our Study Room is the world’s largest collection of research materials on Live Art – an open access research facility for artists, curators, academics, students, and other arts professionals interested in interdisciplinary live and performance practices. What’s in there? Over 8,000 items that include out-of-print books and rare video documentation of performances and discussion events. Is it free to use? Yes, but please note that all sessions must be booked in advance. Where is it? At the Garrett Centre in Bethnal Green, London (E2). When is it open? 4 days a week, from Tuesday to Friday. The sessions are usually 3 hours: 11am-2pm and 2pm-5pm. Can I come for the entire day? Yes! You are welcome to book in for both sessions. How can I book a visit? From the link in our bio – or at thisisliveart.co.uk Are co-working sessions allowed? Absolutely! Bring your friends, collaborators or classmates, but please ask them to book as well. ℹ️ More information about the Study Room and our building’s accessibility can be found on our website. 📷Jemima Yong

Hello from the fresh face of Live Art Bookshop! It’s time for a new chapter in our story and with it, a new name. We’ll still be supplying you with titles you love, exploring the full unruly scope of interdisciplinary live and performance practices. Whether you’re a researcher looking for alternative histories, an artist looking for others who do a thing kind of like what you do, or a supporter of independent bookshops – we have a book for you! Whilst our new name pretty much ‘does what it says on the tin’ – we don’t just do books. You can still find artist zines, limited edition prints and more! Read a blog from LADA Director Mary Osborn on the decision behind the name change at the link in our bio. LAB is evolving! We’ve also made some updates on the Live Art Bookshop website. If you notice any problems please contact [email protected]. Sign up to the LAB newsletter today to receive 10% off, and be the first to hear about our seasonal offers and curated titles.

How and when do you bring others into your practice? How do you support your peers? How do you give and receive feedback? Across two events this summer we’re thinking about the role of peer-to-peer critique in communities of practice. PERFORMANCE CRITS: An Evening of Art School Performance re-imagines the art school critique, with contributions from artists and researchers, as part of a partnership with Central Saint Martins. (@fine_art_csm @csm_news ) Claudia Palazzo (@claudiapalazzo ) and the Stock Check artists will be presenting activations, performance extracts and reflections from their time as a peer-to-peer development group. The group includes Ngo Chun Tse (@phoenixchunzz ), Mark Farid (@morkforid ), Lydia Newman (@Ladedum ), Pianka Pärna (@Piamperformance_ ), Josh Philpott (@_joshphilpott_ ), Shuwen Tan (@shuwent_ ) and Angel Zinovieff (@angelchiron ). 📅 PERFORMANCE CRITS: An Evening of Art School Performance │ Fri 05 Jun, 7pm 🚪Doors at 6.30pm 🎫 Pay What You Can - Check out the link in bio 📍The Garrett Centre, Bethnal Green 📅 Stock Check │ Sat 11 Jul, 6pm 🚪Doors at 5.30pm 🎫 Pay What You Can - Check out the link in bio 📍The Garrett Centre, Bethnal Green 📷 Performance Crits, Poster, 2026. Image Owen Parry (@owengparry ) 📷 Stock Check, Poster, 2026. Image Tse Ngo Chun

Join us in welcoming three new extraordinary Trustees to our Board! Gabriela Román González, Jon Opie and Julian Warren. Together, their experience spans fundraising, archives, artist development and international curation, offering vital expertise and fresh perspectives to support the development of our work. Gabriela Román González (she/her) is a curator and cultural strategist working with a practice centred on contemporary and process-led art, audience engagement, and more porous models of exhibition-making across disciplines. Jon Opie (he/him) is Head of Artist Support for Acme, and previously Deputy Director of Jerwood Arts, where he led on bursaries and fellowships, centring artists’ needs and inclusive practices. Julian Warren (he/him) is an archivist based in Bristol, committed to the long-term preservation of documents of live art and performance so they can remain accessible to everyone who may like to encounter them, now and in the future. As we welcome new members, we will soon announce a call-out for a second Co-Chair to join Cat Sheridan in the co-leadership of our Board, after Robin Deacon steps down in July. Read more about the changes to our board via the link in bio!

🗞️ Dispatch from Studio Somewhere: Do It Together edition! As part of @thisisliveart ’s Do It Together (DIT) project, we collaborated with @glasgowbuzzcut to host Gillie Kleiman’s project Disciplined. As part of the project, Gillie and a cohort worked together over BUZZCUT festival - they dug into the assumptions around Discipline: with conversation, hands-on experimentation and spending time with the amazing BUZZCUT programme together. Gratitude to everyone who brought their (undisciplined!) thinking, honesty and generosity to the project. ::: 
Photography by @tiumakko

We’re working with Artist & Organiser Sophie Chapman to make a Live Art Map of London - past, present & future. This follows on from the State of Live Art in London event as part of @whitechapelgallery London Open Live in July 2025, where we invited audiences to map live art interventions in the city. We want to hear from you about the performances, collectives, venues, courses, nights, events, spaces, groups, workshops that have shaped live art in London. The ones that have long gone, the ones still thriving, and the ones you feel are missing and are yet to be born. Comment below or if you prefer to be more discreet email [email protected] 📸 Performance by @joy_for_stuff at @mince.worldwide.official run by @sophie_chapman & @yesmoa . Image by @noranordfromnorway

We are delighted to announce Sally Rose as the new Deputy Director of Live Art Development Agency. ‘I am thrilled to join LADA as Deputy Director and to collaborate with Mary and the team. I look forward to bringing an enquiring and collaborative approach to support the development of LADA’s values, community and vision. LADA provided formative support to my understanding of artistic practice and sense of belonging in our ecosystem, so providing a foundation for the next phase of LADA’s own journey is incredibly meaningful to me.’ Sally Rose ‘I’m so excited to welcome Sally to LADA. Sally is passionate about transforming creative possibility into practical reality; she cares deeply about supporting artists and organisations to take risks with intention and integrity. Sally brings years of experience working across the Live Art ecology. I can’t wait to take our next steps with Sally.’ Mary Osborn, Director Sally Rose has spent 17 years specialising in development: of ideas, projects, resources, producing and fundraising, often crossing boundaries and genres, always valuing equity, collaboration, experimentation and sustainability. Sally has worked with SPILL Festival, Marlborough Productions, BLM Fest, Duckie, and CONTINUOUS Network, as well as artists Sheila Ghelani, Abigail Conway and Rosana Cade. Sally co-founded Producer Gathering with Xavier de Sousa, initially established through a residency at LADA in 2014. Sally will be with us from June. 📷 James Allan

📢 #OPENCALL | Systems in Question: Live Art Residency Part of Lines of Flight, CASA’s multi-arts programme at Brixton House. Systems in Question is the June-July strand of CASA’s Lines of Flight programme at Brixton House, exploring how power operates through rules, permissions and infrastructures that organise public life - shaping who gets access, how we move, gather and are governed. At its centre is a Live Art Residency, develop in collaboration with Performance Art Video (PAV), with support from Live Art Development Agency (LADA) and IKLECTIK. We invite applications from London-based Latin American/Latinx, Caribbean and diasporic artists and collectives with ties to these heritages, working across live and hybrid practices, to develop a bold new work-in-progress for public presentation. The residency includes, £1000 artist fee + £800 towards production, research and desk space at LADA, studio development at Brixton House, mentoring support from IKLECTIK, and culminates in a public presentation on Sat 4 Jul 2026. We are particularly interested in practices that examine social protocols, institutional structures, public space, surveillance, or the ways bodies are regulated, controlled, or made visible in different contexts. We also welcome proposals that approach these questions from a more intimate perspective, exploring how larger social and political systems are felt, negotiated, or resisted through the body, behaviour, relationships, and everyday experience. 🗓️ The residency will take place from 1 June to 4 July 2026 🔗 Visit CASA’s site to find out more. Link in bio. 
‼️ Application deadline: 2 May 2026, 23:59 BST
 💬 Spread the word!
 - Credits
Presented by @casafestival_ at @brxhousetheatre 
In collaboration with @performanceartvideo 
With support from @thisisliveart and @iklectikartlab Curated and produced by Gabriela Román González (@gabriela_rglez )
Delivery lead (PAV): Laurenz Agustín Argüello (@arguelloagu )
Advisory (LADA): Mary Osborn (@mary_osborn ) and kane stonestreet 
Mentoring (IKLECTIK): Dyana Gravina (@dygravina ) Image credit: VestAndPage, STRATA. Photo by Daz Disley.

It's the London Games Festival! And there's a really neat experimental strand happening this year: three spots across London where @londongamesfest have supported organisations and artists and curators who are interested in different sorts of playful work to put on something new as part of the festival. Tickets are available from the individual organisations (if you can't find 'em you could go via my most recent newsletter, which has more details on all of these events - linked in my bio) A bit more about the events: On Wednesday 15th, @thisisliveart are hosting an interactive talk from artists @productionsbysymone and @ladydangfua , who have just run a two-day game jam with a bunch of different makers. Their work is SO neat - on Wednesday they'll be presenting an interactive performance mixing videogames, story, and dance. (Main image for this one by @ladydangfua , other images are of the artists) On Thursday, Play Praxis - led by its curator Sindi Breshani and producer Raphael Benros - will be filling Siobhan Davies Studios with a day of roundtables and game demos and workshops and chats and just general hanging out. It's going to be a really lovely day! This is the second edition of Play Praxis, and it's particularly looking at games in relation to the human mind. (Pictures from the first run of Play Praxis in November.) Finally, @_voidspace_zine is running a BUNCH of different events across the week; some great playable shows online, a Strange Play Open Mic on Monday (this one's sold out!), an indie game makers meetup with @gaemzmu on Tuesday, all culminating in a showcase of strange playful work across the weekend of 18-19 April. Absolutely something here for everyone, as long as that everyone specifically wants something quite weird. (Pictures from previous Voidspace events.) (We're sharing this on the old Now Play This account because although NPT has wrapped up, I think if you were interested in what it did, one of these is probably gonna speak to you.)

LADA and The Ampersand Foundation are delighted to announce Carle Gent @fashion_vacuum as artist in residence at @wigwell_lodge from August to September. Carle will use the residency to go deeper into her exploration of the queer and internal lives of nonhuman animals, researching nonreproductive sexual and romantic relations in nature across two months of site based artistic practice. This will include experimenting across sonic, written and performed processes created in collaboration with the local Derbyshire ecology, taking cues from ecological activism’s incorporation of artistic practice as an essential strategic tool. Carle will explore degrees of human and animal legibility, and devise ways to coauthor with local flora and fauna using divinatory and sculptural techniques. Carle will walk, cycle and swim the local wetlands, heathlands, bogs and grasslands, developing a process of ‘observing’ traces of queer animal activity through field recordings in ultra and infra-sound, lens and movement-based ‘observations’ and mythopoetic divination. Carle will stagger her sleep-cycle over the two months to include periods of nocturnal and early-morning studio practice and shift her own bio-rhythm to that of her nonhuman collaborators. 📸 Carle Gent and Linda Stupart, ecco, 2024. Photo Ailie Rutherford. Courtesy of Hospitalfield. 📸 @gray_carmen

📅 Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley & Symoné – The Rules of Watching: Interactive Talk │ Wed 15 Apr, 6.30pm Join us for an evening exploring how @symoneforever and @ladydangfua integrate game methodology in their visual and performance practices. Following their Game Jams at LADA, The Rules of Watching picks up where those questions of spectatorship and agency left off. Expect a meeting point of dance, interactive political group reflection, and game structures. This is the first time the two artists are working together. This is an invitation to step inside a process and see what takes shape together. 📅 Wed 15, 7-9pm 🚪 6:30pm 📍 The Garrett Centre, Bethnal Green 🎫 Pay What You Can - £5-£12 🔗 Check out the link in our bio! 📷 @ladydangfua 👯 Funded by @londongamesfest ✨ Part of the @nowplaythis Legacy Series