Performance, Memory, Heritage, History, Spectacle—The Iron Ship

Abstract

The Iron Ship was a site-specific production on the heritage ship the SS Great Britain, based in Bristol's Floating Harbour. The show was the focus for two types of research: creative research into the nature of spectacle and fieldwork research into the processes of cultural memory stimulated by performance. The relationships between these two types of research in The Iron Ship project are explored through this article, which addresses a number of key problems in the fast-growing field of creative research in theatre and performance in British universities. For example: how might creative and fieldwork methodologies be best combined to increase the range and significance of results; how might the differences between ‘practice-as-research’ and ‘practice-based research’ be best defined; how might such developments in a new(ish) research field be seen as having socio-political implications?