PERFORMANCE / INSTALLATION
COLLABORATION WITH ADRIENNE HART
’EMPATHY’  & ‘WILD CARDS’
2016 - 2019

What makes our behaviour uniquely human?

This question lies at the heart of Empathy, a multidisciplinary performance work that interrogates the cognitive and emotional architectures underpinning our capacity to connect with others.

Drawing from Simon Baron-Cohen’s influential text Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty and Kindness, the project seeks to navigate the complex terrain of human relationality, with particular attention to the mechanisms through which empathy is cultivated, disrupted, or altogether absent.

Engaging the body, sound, and spatial design as critical modalities of inquiry, Empathy unfolds as a choreographic and sonic meditation on the empathy spectrum - foregrounding the subtle thresholds between identification, alienation and affective resonance.

Featuring an international constellation of collaborators from diverse disciplinary and cultural contexts, the piece situates itself within contemporary performance practices that blur the lines between theatre, installation, and social experiment. Empathy not only reflects on the ethical imperatives of intersubjectivity, but also poses urgent questions about the role of artistic expression in cultivating an empathic imagination within an increasingly fragmented world.