Fast familiar’s The Acquisitions Panel and the decolonizing potential of interactive performance

Woynarski, L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2516-0046, Tyler, L. and Barnard, D. (2025) Fast familiar’s The Acquisitions Panel and the decolonizing potential of interactive performance. Theatre Topics, 35 (2). pp. 141-154. ISSN 1086-3346 doi: 10.1353/tt.2025.a965110

Abstract/Summary

This article puts current discourses around decolonizing in Heritage and Museum studies with participatory performance practices. Focusing on Fast Familiar’s The Acquisitions Panel (2022), it identifies how this performance extends emergent methodologies in decolonizing museums using interactive performance. It commences with a detailed overview of The Acquisitions Panel, before moving into an analysis of the ways in which the performance draws on innovations in object biographies, place-based heritage, and discourses on repatriation. It places an emphasis on exploring how theatrical aesthetics, namely the form of interactive performance, can itself enhance a dialogue around, and democratization of, decolonized curatorial practices. As a result, the article makes a case for the possibilities of performance to support wider cultural processes of decolonizing. Co-authored by three theatre scholars involved in the making and producing of The Acquisitions Panel, this article develops new knowledge surrounding how decolonizing discourses can be engaged with in interactive performance, within museums and beyond. Keywords: interactive performance; museums; decolonization.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/127469
Identification Number/DOI	10.1353/tt.2025.a965110
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Arts and Communication Design > Film, Theatre & Television
Publisher	Hopkins Press
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