Professor Minty Donald
- Professor of Contemporary Performance Practice (Theatre, Film & Television Studies)
telephone:
01413305162
email:
Minty.Donald@glasgow.ac.uk
TFTV Studies, Gilmorehill Halls, Glasgow G12 8QQ
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5145-1130Biography
Before becoming a lecturer at the University of Glasgow I trained and practiced professionally as a scenographer, working with many of Scotland and the UK’s theatre, dance and performance companies (including the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh; National Theatre of Scotland; Welfare State International, Scottish Ballet, and London Contemporary Dance). I also taught performance design at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (then RSAMD) and public art on the Sculpture and Environmental Art programme at Glasgow School of Art. In 2005, I was awarded an AHRC Fellowship in the Creative Arts, based at Glasgow School of Art, which allowed me to develop as an artist-researcher. Since 2008, I have worked as a lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow, combining this role with a professional practice as an artist. I received a PhD from the University of Glasgow in 2014.
Research interests
All my research is underpinned by an interest in more-than-human performance: the idea that performance is something that both humans and other-than-humans do, and do in ways that are entangled, complex, and sometimes incompatible and antagonistic. I make and engage critically with artwork that focusses on more-than-human agency as a means of challenging anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism. I regularly collaborate with (human) artist, Nick Millar. We often work with experts from disciplines outside the arts: for instance, geographers, geologists, hydrologists, engineers, planners and architects.
Recent and ongoing research projects include:
Guddling About (exploring humans’ interrelations with rivers and other watercourses) www.guddlingabout.com
THEN/NOW: public art, heritage and ecology then-now.org
Erratic Drift: human-geological performance
Extractive Landscapes (exploring ‘extraction’ as performance and sculptural practice)
Grants
- 2020 - Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art Commission
- 2020 - Creative Scotland Open Fund Award
- 2020 - Glasgow City Council Public Events Award
- 2018 - Creative Scotland Open Fund Award
- 2017 - Historic Environment Scotland Award
- 2017 - ANTI Contemporary Art Festival Commission
- 2014 - Culture 2014 Award
- 2014 - Scottish Canals Commission
- 2013 - Creative Scotland Public Art Research and Development Award
- 2012 - Creative Scotland Professional Development Award
- 2012 - Glasgow Life Visual Arts Award
- 2009 - Scottish Arts Council Visual Arts Research and Development Award
Supervision
I welcome PhD proposals in the fields of:
performance/theatre/arts and ecology; more-than-human performance; scenography; place and performance (site-specific, site-orientated, critical spatial practice); public art
- Hao, Bopeng
Symbiosis in performances: The Vital Pulse of Eco-Scenography
Past projects
- Imlach, Hannah; Close Encounters: art, presence and environmental engagement at Loch Lomond (with University of Edinburgh, School of GeoSciences)
- Henry, Paul Michael, ‘With Your Feet Deep in the Earth: fostering experiences of interdependent selfhood through embodied performance practice’ (with Royal Conservatoire of Scotland)
- Fremantle, Christopher; Working Together: participation, collaboration, interdisciplinarity in health & wellbeing and in environment research and practice (with Robert Gordon University)
- Casado, Rosa; Close Encounters with an Overwhelmed Present: performing an expanded sense of place
- Henry, Andrew; Documenting Landscape Performance
- Nicholson, Philip; Snap, Pan, Zoom, Click, Grab, and the Embodied Archive of Geographic Information Systems (with Geography and Earth Science, University of Glasgow)
- Beall, Tara; Crossing the Clyde to the Riverside: engaging the transport museum with publics and place using participatory performance (Collaborative Doctoral Award with Riverside Museum, Glasgow)
- Overend, David; Underneath the Arches : developing a relational theatre practice in response to a specific cultural site.
- Rutherford, Cassandra; Building Theatres/Theatre Buildings: reinventing Mull Theatre (Collaborative Doctoral Award with Mull Theatre)
Teaching
- Reading the Stage (Level 1)
- Modernism to Postmodernism (Level 2)
- Space, Place and Performance (Honours)
- Dissertations (Honours)
- Research Methods (PGT and PGR)
- Independent Practice (MLitt Theatre and Performance Practices)
- Devising (M Litt Theatre and Performance Practices)
- Making Time: performing and thinking temporalities in the creative arts (PGT School of Culture and Creative Arts)
Additional information
Administration
- Convenor of Postgraduate Research (Theatre Studies)
- College of Arts Sustainability Champion
External Responsibilities
- External Examiner, University of Aberystwyth, Masters in Performance and Scenography, 2020 –
- Board Director, Sanctuary Lab
