Professor Misha Myers

Professor Misha Myers BA, MA, FHEA, PhD

Head of School of Stage and Screen

In a body of work developed over the past two decades as a performance maker and researcher, Misha Myers has been investigating how storying place and placing stories contributes to humans’ sense of belonging, connection and adaptation, particularly in the digital age and time of mass migration and climatic change. Since 2002, she has pursued this enquiry through collaboration with diverse stakeholders in global contexts, including with refugee inhabitants of the UK and farmers in India, and through experimentation with applications of located, screen-based, mobile and extended reality technologies and media in performance.

Her practice-based research has resulted in co-designed projects that have taken multiple forms including live distributed performances, augmented reality experiences, digital exhibitions, games, audio-visual installations, audio walks, guided walks, radio broadcasts and multi-media interfaces. This work has been presented internationally in venues, exhibitions, residencies and festivals including The Museum of Loss and Renewal, Italy (2022), European Cultural Centre ‘Personal Structures’ exhibition in conjunction with the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), European Commonwealth Games Festival Glasgow (2018), Monash Academy of Performing Arts and Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture in Melbourne (2016), Walking Artist Network’s ‘Women Walking’ programme, Somerset House and Forest Fringe (2016), British Council Unbox Festival, Delhi (2013) and Sideways Festival, Belgium (2012), amongst others.

Her award-winning multimedia artwork ‘way from home’ (2004) attracted an AOL Innovation Award, Arts Council of England R&D Grant and commission from Performance Research and was recognised in Leonardo Electronic Almanac’s special issue on locative media art (2006) as a first-generation example of the emerging artform.

In addition to her original body of practice-as-research outputs, Misha’s research has been published in top tier journals and notable publishers of critical qualitative research including over 35 peer-reviewed chapters, articles, reports and co-edited journal. With an h-index and i10-index both at 9, her published work is widely cited and recognised by world-leading scholars for its original contributions to site-specific performance (Mike Pearson 2010), migration studies (O’Neill and Hubbard 2010, and others by O’Neill), digital ethnography (Sarah Pink 2011) and mobilities studies and cultural geography (Cresswell 2012, Scheller 2014, et. 2015, Gallagher, 2015) and others.

Misha joined the University of Greenwich in June 2022 having previously worked in Australia at Deakin University where she holds an Honorary Professorship and is Research Fellow in the Deakin Motion Lab.

Responsibilities within the university

  • Head of School of Stage and Screen
  • Professor of Contemporary Performance

Awards

  • Teaching and Learning Award, Deakin University Faculty of Arts and Education, 2021
  • AOL Innovation in the Community Award, 2004

Recognition

  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
  • Member Theatre and Performance Research Association
  • Member Australian Drama Studies Association
  • Member Performance Studies International
  • Member International Federation for Theatre Research
  • Editorial Board Member and Digital Editor for Research in Drama Education: The journal of Applied Theatre and Performance
  • Assessor Australian Research Council Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) evaluation
  • Peer Reviewer Australian Research Council
  • Peer Review College Member UK Arts and Humanities Research Council
  • Peer Reviewer Austrian Science Fund
  • Peer Reviewer UK Medical Research Council
  • Peer Reviewer Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council
  • External examiner Central School of Speech and Drama
  • External examiner University of East London
  • External validation examiner Collarts University
  • External validation examiner University of Lincoln
  • External validation examiner Brunel University

Research / Scholarly interests

  • Intermedial, interactive, immersive and site-specific performance
  • extended reality technologies and performance
  • audio-led performance
  • socially engaged art practices
  • spatial humanities
  • digital humanities
  • art and mobilities
  • participatory and relational art practices
  • walking art and aesthetics
  • feminist art practices

Key funded projects

  • 2021 Through funding received from Deakin University (7000 AUD), Misha founded the Extending Realities Forum with partner Frame Documentary to bring together creative practitioners and academics working nationally in Australia with emerging interactive and immersive technologies in game design, performance, VR/AR and film to identify challenges across this dynamic, diverse and rapidly transforming sector that are best addressed through academic and industry partnership. Two workshops hosted in July 2021 brought together 30+ leading creators, academics, curators and producers from Australian XR, Film, TV and Performing Arts industry including the Australian Centre for Moving Image, Australian National Sound and Film Archive, MIFF, Arts Centre Melbourne, VRTOV Studio, Phoria, League of Geeks, Sandpit and researchers from universities including leading academics working in related areas at Monash, Melbourne, RMIT and Swinburne. Through my mentoring and the Forum activity, Misha’s PhD student and VR Producer and Co-Founder of Frame Documentary, Katy Morrison, was successful in obtaining 5000 AUD from Film Victoria for industry partner Frame for further activity in 2022 and a research placement opportunity with Melbourne International Film Festival as part of their new XR Commission initiative.
  • 2020 The Australian Research Council Discovery Project (Grant DP200102876), Staging Australian Women’s Lives: Theatre, Feminism and Socially Engaged Art, (257,529AUD) is a research project that sees the stage is an ideal laboratory for crafting and rehearsing responses to social inequalities. This project draws attention to the indelible achievements and contributions of Australia’s women theatre makers. Working with a national network of directors and dramaturgs, actors, designers, producers and theatre companies, the project documents the methods theatre makers use to address gendered oppression and violence. As a Chief Investigator on the project, Dr. Misha Myers is co-designing an online collection and exhibition of research data generated through the project. The preservation, documentation, curation and publishing of this data, will enable women theatre maker’s contributions to reach a diverse and global audience and contribute material for the generation of a live performance to be created by the project team at the culmination of the project. The performance will showcase the widest possible range of work, voices, and presence of women theatre makers.
  • 2018 European Championship Festival 2018 Glasgow commission for Walking Library / Wild City (25,500GBP), for collaboration with Alec Finlay Studio including 8 performances and book publication. This competitive commission from European Championship Games Festival 2018 was secured and awarded for a collaboration with renowned Scottish poet and visual artist Alec Finlay. The project built upon Myers’ longstanding collaboration with Professor Deirdre Heddon (University of Glasgow) on ‘The Walking Library’ project, an ongoing practice-based research project exploring walking as a cultural practice which has produced a series of iterations commissioned by and created in partnership with a number of external partners in global contexts since 2012. This body of work has gained an international reputation as a leading example of walking art practice. For ‘Wild City’ Myers, Heddon and Finlay partnered with organizations concerned with supporting both non-human and human wellbeing including RSPB Glasgow Wildlife Garden Festival, prominent international art-space Tramway and Hidden Gardens and Roma community centre Govanhill Baths to produce eight public participatory performances of the ‘Walking Library for Wild City’ across different locations in Glasgow and a book publication of the event.

Previous major funded research projects include:

  • 2013 Arts Humanities Research Council UnBox Fellowship Booster Funding, Principal Investigator (Grant Reference   AH/L503605/1, (25,000GBP +in-kind expenses and materials for month-long placement), industry placement and partnership with NGO Digital Green and researchers at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Produced a physical and digital social impact game ‘Bumper Crop’, available on Google Play store, and project reports,
  • 2011 European Social Fund II (Grant Number 011200NCO5, 46,800GBP), for ‘Augmenting Impact with Social Media’, partnership with Wild Works Theatre
  • 2011 European Social Fund II (Grant Number 011200NCO5, 42,000GPB), for ‘Designing ‘Designing Landscape Narrative Experience with Locative Media’, postgraduate research studentship in partnership with Treasure Trails

Media activity

Recent publications

Edited Journals

  • Myers, Misha and Deirdre Heddon, eds. (2017) Performance Research: On Libraries:, 22.1 March.

Peer Reviewed Book Chapters

  • Holman Jones, Stacy and Dan Harris, Alyson Campbell, Misha Myers, Peta Murray, Mish Grigor and Ripley Stevens (2022) ‘On Care-Fulness: Critical Creative Expressions of Care in a Feminist Theatre Research Project’ Research in Arts and Education.
  • Myers, Misha and Lucy Frears (2021) ‘Performing Cartographies: Getting Inside and Beyond the Map’ in Cohen, Phil, and Mike Duggan, eds., New Directions in Radical Cartography, Rowman International Press, 207-230. ISBN: 978-1-5381-4719-1
  • Finlay, Alec, Deirdre Heddon and Misha Myers (2021) ‘WILD CITY | FIADH-BHAILE | ORASUL SALBATIC: Mapping the Wild in the Greeny Howe of Glasgow’, in Cohen, Phil, and Mike Duggan, eds., New Directions in Radical Cartography, Rowman International Press, 201-206. ISBN: 978-1-5381-4719-1
  • Myers, Misha and Mariam Issa (2020) ‘Homing as Co-creative Work: When Home Becomes a Village’, In Refugee Imaginaries: Research across the humanities. Editor(s): Cox E, Durrant S, Farrier D, Stonebridge L, Woolley A. University of Edinburgh Press: Edinburgh, 533-547.
  • Heddon, Deirdre and Misha Myers (2020) ‘The Walking Library for Women Walking’ in Borthwick, David and Pippa Marland, Anna Stenning, eds., Walking, Landscape and Environment, Oxon: Routledge, 113-126. ISBN-10: 1138630101
  • Myers, Misha (2018) ‘Nowhere without you’, in in Breed, Ananda and Tim Prentki, eds, Performance and Civic Engagement, pp. 107-133, London: Palgrave. ISBN-13: 9783319665160.
  • Harris, Anne, Stacy Holman Jones, Larissa Hjorth and Misha Myers (2017) ‘Creativity, Interdisciplinarity and Fostering Play as Serious Business’ in O’Connor, P. and C. Rozas Gómez, eds, Playing with Possibilities, pp. 92-108, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN-13: 978-1-5275-0379-3
  • Frears, Lucy, Misha Myers and Erik Geelhoed (2017) ‘Performing Landscape Using a Locative Media Deep Map App: A Cornish case study’ in Riding, J. and M. Jones, eds, Reanimating Regions: Culture, Politics, Performance, pp 263-286, London: Routledge. SBN-13: 978-1138931534.
  • Myers, Misha (2014) ‘Enduring Gravity: Footnotes of Walking and Duration’, Choreographic Dwellings: Practising Place, eds. Schiller, G. and S. Rubidge, pp. 27-44, London: Palgrave.
  • Myers, Misha and Tracy Warr (2013) ‘Finding a different way home: Misha Myers in conversation with Tracey Warr’ in Meskimmon, Martha and Dorothy Rowe, eds, Women, the Arts and Globalization: Eccentric Experience (Rethinking Art’s Histories), pp 67-84, Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN: 978-0-7190-8875-9
  • Ernstmann, Natalia, Jan Boeckel, Shelley Sacks and Misha Myers (2012) “Inviting the Unforeseen: A Dialogue About Art, Learning and Sustainability” in Arjen E.J. Wals and Peter Blaze Corcoran, eds, Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change, pp 201-212, Netherlands: Wageningen Academic Publishers.
  • Myers, Misha (2011) ‘Vocal Landscaping: The theatricality of sound in audio walks’, Theatre Noise, Roesner, David and Lynne Kendrick, eds, pp 70-81, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press. ISBN-13:978-1-4438-3440-7
  • Myers, Misha (2005) ‘Journeys to, from and around’, Art in the Age of Terrorism, Coulter-Smith, Graham and Maurice Owen, eds., pp 213-227, London: Paul Holberton Press.

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

  • Myers, Myers (2020) ‘The waves carve their own desires’: the affects and agencies of intramedial performance, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 25:3, 364-377.
  • Heddon, Deirdre and Misha Myers (2019) ‘Pedestrian Pedagogy: The Walking Library for Women Walking’, Journal of Public Pedagogies: WalkingLab, 4, 108-117.
  • Myers, Misha and Deirdre Heddon (2018) ‘Walking Library for a Wild City’, Performance Research, 23:7, 48-49.
  • Myers, Misha (2018) ‘A school for adventure: the journeys of Dartington College of Arts’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 9:3, 314-323.
  • Myers, Misha (2018) ‘Does this house hold?’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 9:3, 422-422.
  • Misha Myers and Deirdre Heddon (2018) The Walking Library Collections: The convivial logic of a library made for walking, Interartive: A Platform for Contemporary Art and Thought, 100, https://walkingart.interartive.org/2018/12/walking-library.
  • Myers, Misha and Deirdre Heddon, eds. (2017) ‘On Libraries: Introduction’, Performance Research: On Libraries:, 22.1 March, 1-8.
  • Deirdre Heddon and Misha Myers (2017) ‘The Walking Library: Mobilizing books, places, readers and reading’, Performance Research: On Libraries, 22.1, March, pp 32-48.
  • Myers, Misha (2017) ‘way from home: Sharing a walk elsewhere’, Livingmaps Review, 2, http://livingmaps.review/journal/index.php/LMR/article/view/61, ISSN: 2398-0338.
  • Myers, Misha, Dane Watkins and Richard Sobey (2016) ‘Conversive Theatres: Performance with/in social media networks’, Performance Paradigm, 12, pp 82-98.
    http://www.performanceparadigm.net/index.php/journal/article/view/ 180, ISSN: 1832-5580.
  • Myers, M., Dane Watkins and Richard Sobey (2016), ‘Extending Story-worlds through Social Media’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 21, 3, pp 431-437.
  • Heddon, Deirdre and Misha Myers (2014) ‘Stories from the Walking Library’, Cultural Geographies, 21: 4, 639-655.
  • Myers, Misha (2011) ‘Walking again lively: towards an ambulant and conversive methodology of performance and research‘, Mobilities Journal, Vol 6, No 2, pp 183-201, London: Routledge.
  • Myers, Misha (2011) ‘Now Everybody Sing: Voicing dissensus in new choral performance’, Performance Research: On Participation & Synchronization, Vol 16, No 3, pp 62-66.
  • Myers, Misha (2010) ‘Is that a pistol in your pocket …?”: Corral Consciousness and the Performance of Enclosure and Concealment’, Performance Paradigm, Special Issue, Interruptions: Letters to Jimmie Durham, Vol 6 (June), pp 41-52 [Online] Available: http://www.performanceparadigm.net/journal/issue-6/articles/%E2%80%9Cis-that-a-pistol-in-your-pocket%E2%80%9D-corral-consciousness-and-the-performance-of-enclosure-and-concealment/ ISSN: 1832-5580
  • Myers, Misha (2010) ‘Walk with me, talk with me: The art of conversive wayfinding’, Visual Studies, Vol 25, No 1, April, pp 59-68, London: Routledge.
  • Myers, Misha (2008) ‘Situations for living: performing emplacement’, Research in Drama Education, Vol 13, No 2, pp 171-180, London: Routledge.
  • Myers, Misha (2006) ‘Along the way: Situation-responsive approach to education and participation’, International Journal of the Arts in Society, Vol 1, No 2, pp 1-6, Melbourne: Common Ground.
  • Myers, Misha (2006) ‘Homing Devices for Unhomely Times’, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Vol14, No 3, Locative Media Special Issue, unpaginated [Online] Available: http://leoalmanac.org/journal/vol_14/lea_v14_n03-04/mmyers.asp, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISSN:1071 - 4391
  • Myers, Misha & Dan Harris, (2004) ‘way from home’, Performance Research: On the Page, Vol 9, No 2, pp 90-91 and DVD supplement, London: Routledge.
  • Myers, Misha  (1998) ‘View Points and the Suzuki Method’, Total Theatre, Vol. 10 Issue 3 Autumn.

Reports and PhD Publication (Non-peer Reviewed)

  • Myers, Misha; Mahapatra, Saswat; Sabnani, Nina; Joshi, Anirudha (2016): Play to Grow: Augmenting Agriculture with Social Impact Games, Report 1. Monash University. Report. https://doi.org/10.4225/03/56E0C51EABD15
  • Myers, Misha; Mahapatra, Saswat; Sabnani, Nina; Josh, Anirudha (2016): Play to Grow: Augmenting Agriculture with Social Impact Games, Report 2. Monash University. Report. https://doi.org/10.4225/03/56E0C6B82C213
  • Myers, Misha; Mahaptra, Saswat; Sabnani, Nina; Josh, Anirudha (2016): Play to Grow: Augmenting Agriculture with Social Impact Games, Report 3. Monash University. Report. https://doi.org/10.4225/03/56E0C7EC24F6F
  • Myers, Misha 2015. ‘way from home’, in Qualmann, Clare and Claire Hind, Ways to Wander. Triarchy Press.
  • Myers, Misha 2009. Homing Place: Towards a Participatory, Ambulant and Conversive Methodology. PhD Thesis. Dartington College of Arts/University of Plymouth. https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk//handle/10026.1/3181 (Accessed 24 May 2016).

Presentations

Conferences Convened

  • 2022 ‘Silences of the Archive’, Deakin University
  • 2021 Extending Realities Forum, Deakin University
  • 2017 ‘Theatre as Memory Work’, Monash University
  • 2015 ‘Where to?; Steps Towards the Future of Walking Arts Practices’ in partnership with the AHRC Walking Artist Network, Falmouth University, two days
  • 2015 ‘I, Audience: The Impact of Communication Technologies on Audiences' Experiences and Expectations of Theatre and Performance’, Falmouth University
  • 2014 Workshop/Symposium, GeoHack, Fascinate 2014, Falmouth University
  • 2013 Sandpit/Symposium, Rock Jam & being IN [landscape] seminar 2: A shared exploration of a Cornish Quarry, in partnership with Andrew Whall and Cornwall Autonomous Zone, Falmouth University
  • 2012 Sandpit, Locative Media and Landscape Stewardship, with Blast Theory, Falmouth University
  • 2012 Now Everybody Sing symposium and festival, Falmouth University
  • 1999 Performance Studies International 9: Here Be Dragons Performance Festival, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Producer practice-based research performance programme (first of its kind for Psi) and Assistant Producer on parallel performance festival produced by Centre for Performance Research

Invited Keynotes and Public Lectures

  • 2022 Keynote for Inauguration of Department of Communication, Drama and Film, Exeter University
  • 2021 Wilding Places through Walking (and Not Walking), Living Maps
  • 2020 Locative Media Summer School, Kings College, London
  • 2019 European Cultural Centre Summer School, Venice, Italy
  • 2017 Future of Storytelling Panel, Digital Writers Festival, Australia Centre for the Moving Image
  • 2015 AHRC - British Council UnBox Showcase, Institute Contemporary Arts, London
  • 2014 Impossible Constellation: Practice-Led Research Special Event, University of Lincoln
  • 2013 Effectiveness of ICT for Rural Development, Digital Green, Delhi
  • 2013 Expanded Narrative Symposium, University of Plymouth, Invited speaker
  • 2013 Mobility Futures, Lancaster University, Catalyst Bursary exhibition, workshop and presentation
  • 2013 UnBox Festival, New Delhi
  • 2012 Sideways Festival ‘Setting Out’ symposium, Belgium
  • 2011 Walking and Landskip Knowledge (W.A.L.K) symposium, Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, University of Sunderland
  • 2011 Anticipatory Histories symposium, AHRC Anticipatory Histories Network, University of Exeter
  • 2009 Mobility and Nomadicity Symposium, University of Limerick
  • 2008 ROAM: Walking Arts Festival Seminar, Loughborough, University
  • 2006 Creative Community Development, DCC Granollers, Spain
  • 2004 Art in the Age of Terrorism, group exhibition artist talk, Millais Gallery

Conference Presentations

  • 2021 Australian Drama Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies Conference, Deakin University
  • 2021 Antiquity and Immersivity Conference, University of Bristol
  • 2020 Performing Arts Heritage Network, Ghost Lightning Talks
  • 2020 A New Poetics of Space: Literary Walks in times of Pandemics and Climate Change Conference, Mid Sweden University
  • 2017 History, Culture and Identity: Australian Studies in Australia and India, Bankura University, India
  • 2016 Crossroads in Cultural Studies, Association for Cultural Studies, University of Sydney
  • 2016 Performing Climates: Performance Studies International #22, University of Melbourne
  • 2016 Performing Stigma, University of Melbourne
  • 2016 Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts 2016: Place, Ecology and the Digital, University of Brighton
  • 2015 GeoMedia 2015: Spaces and Mobilities in Mediatized Worlds, Karlstad University, Sweden
  • 2014 Communication Futures, Digital Research in the Humanities and the Arts, University of Greenwich
  • 2014 Videogame Cultures 6, Inter-disciplinary.net, Oxford University
  • 2014 Storystorm Workshop at the ACM Design of Interaction Systems Conference 2014, Vancouver
  • 2013 Performance Studies International 19, Stanford University, Walking Library Praxis Workshop
  • 2013 TaPRA, University of Glasgow, presentation on Walking Library, with Deirdre Heddon
  • 2013 Walking in the City: Mapping Borders Symposium, PLaCE Research Centre, Bristol University and Parlour Showrooms
  • 2011 International Forum on Guided Tours, University of Plymouth
  • 2010 Making Sense Colloquium, IRI-Centre Pompidou, Institut Télécom, NYU in Paris
  • 2010 Imagining Bodies: Landscape, Memory, Community, Department of Choreography, Institute of Fine Arts, Tallinn University, Estonia
  • 2010 Diasporic Cities Symposium, Queen Mary University
  • 2010 Glocal Imaginaries, Lancaster University and Whitworth Gallery
  • 2009 International Federation for Theatre Research World Congress, Lisbon, Bursary recipient
  • 2009 9th European Sociological Association Conference Lisbon: European Biographies, Art, Performance, and Methodology, University of Lisbon, Portugal
  • 2009 Silent Voices Forbidden Lives: Censorship and Performance, IFTR-FIRT, University of Lisbon
  • 2009 Theatre Noise International Conference, The Central School of Speech and Drama
  • 2009 Living Landscapes, Aberystwyth University
  • 2009 Sites of Performance: Mapping/Performance/History, University of Nottingham
  • 2008 Performing Biographies, Memory and the Art of Interpretation International Conference of the European Sociological Association, Research Network 3, Jagiellonski University Cracow, Poland
  • 2007 Performance and Asylum: Ethics, Embodiment, Community, Royal Holloway
  • 2006 Performance and Asylum: Research Issues, AHRC Symposium, Royal Holloway
  • 2006 Performing Rights, Performance Studies International, Queen Mary University, Panel Organiser
  • 2006 Digital Resources for the Humanities and Arts, Dartington College of Arts
  • 2006 Arts in Society, University of Edinburgh
  • 2005 Becoming Uncomfortable, Performance Studies International Brown University
  • 2004 Site/Sight-Source/Resource Symposium, Exeter University
  • 2003 Sense of Place, British Council, Cardiff, supported by Arts Council of England