Love Letters to a Liveable Future

‘Love Letters to a Liveable Future’ takes the challenge of the climate crisis and offers the dream space to imagine how we would like our world to be different: one that foregrounds the health, wellbeing and future of all living creatures.

Performing-arts company METIS, led by their artistic director Zoe Svendsen, will be presenting a new version of ‘Love Letters to A Liveable Future’, developed during a month-long residency in the Forum at Wellcome Collection (4–30 April). Adding new voices to this cabaret-style performance that combines story-telling and improvisation, audiences will have the opportunity to come together with experts and theatre-makers to imagine different scenarios and futures in the face of ecological crisis.

Zoë Svendsen, Director at METIS, said, “We’ve been dreaming our way out of the climate crisis – and now we’ve made a show: watch us spar, flirt, fight, argue, laugh and cry our way towards imagining the world(s) we want to live in. We don’t have any answers, but we can’t sit back and let others keep writing a dystopian future for us: join us in an escapist, fantasy-filled, sometimes megalomaniacal, but defiantly hopeful take on global transformation.”

Rosie Stanbury, Head of Public Programmes, Wellcome Collection, said, “At Wellcome Collection, we look for new ways to connect, dream, and think about our changing relationships with each other and build a healthier world together. We know that some of the best research is that which places human experience at its core. We are therefore delighted to be welcoming METIS to Wellcome Collection, who will use their innovative processes to create a work which transforms itself over time and with the public at the heart of that journey. I can’t wait to see how this project develops over April and what a healthier and more hopeful future might look like.”

Over the past few years, METIS has created a number of projects that “imagine otherwise” – in the face of ecological disaster and political inertia, trying to imagine another world into being, and we find that the more we imagine, the more we discover others who are imagining too.

As part of their ongoing process, “research in public”, the METIS team will be holding a series of conversations with researchers and experts from Wellcome Trust and workshops with local schools throughout the residency period.

‘Love Letters to a Liveable Future’ at Wellcome Collection is performed by:

Francesca Henry (‘Hamlet’, Sam Wanamaker playhouse @ The Globe), Stefanie Mueller (New International Encounter’s ‘Snow Queen’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ – designer and performer), Tom Ross-Williams (performer, director and activist with NEON www.tomrosswilliams.com) and Bianca Stephens (‘The Pappy Show’ www.thepappyshow.co.uk).

The cast will be joined by Director Zoë Svendsen (information below), Associate Director Lucy Wray, set and video designer Simon Daw (www.simondaw.com), lighting designer Nao Nagai (https://royalcourttheatre.com/cast/nao-nagai/) and sound designer Cat Hawthorn (https://www.cathawthornsounds.co.uk).

‘Love Letters to a Liveable Future’ has been devised by the METIS collaborators: Shôn Dale-Jones, Charlie Folorunsho, Francesca Henry, Jess Mabel Jones, Stefanie Mueller, Anna-Maria Nabirye,Tom Ross-Williams & Bianca Stephens. Directed/designed by Zoë Svendsen with Simon Daw (set/video), Nao Nagai (lighting), Catherine Hawthorn (sound) and John Macedo (film). With the support of associates: Carolyn Downing, Lucy Wray, Rob Awosusi and Andrea Ling. Production management: Steve Wald.

‘Love Letters to a Liveable Future’ was originally commissioned by Cambridge Junction through Season for Change, a UK-wide cultural programme inspiring urgent and inclusive action on climate change, led by Artsadmin and Julie’s Bicycle, funded by Arts Council England and Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Developed through a Homemakers commission. 

Produced by Artsadmin.

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Notes to editors

Visitor information:

Performance dates:

•  Wed 20 Apr, 19.00–21.00
• Thu 21 Apr, 19.00–21.00
• Fri 22 Apr, 19.00–21.00
• Wed 27 Apr, 14.00–16.00
• Thu 28 Apr, 19.00–21.00
• Fri 29 Apr, 14.00–16.00 & 19.00–21.00
• Sat 23 Apr, 15.00–17.00
• Sat 30 Apr, 19.00–21.00

Admission to Wellcome Collection is free but booking free tickets are required for the performances. Booking can be done through Wellcome Collection’s website.

Wellcome Collection opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10.00 to 18.00, closed Mondays.

Address: Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road NW1 2BE

About the artists:

About METIS

Directed by Zoë Svendsen, METIS is a UK performing arts company creating interdisciplinary performance projects through rigorous research. A fascination with maps, space, technology, travel and history drives work in a range of media. METIS involves a diverse network of artists, creating richly detailed audience experiences.

About Zoë Svendsen

Zoë Svendsen is a director and dramaturg, currently undertaking a research project at the Donmar as their “climate dramaturg” (see: https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/climate-dramaturg-zoe-svendsen--this-isnt-theatre-that-preaches-to-the-converted).

Zoe makes participatory theatre performances and installation works exploring contemporary political subjects, including: ‘Ness’, a sonic headphone work commissioned by METAL for Estuary 2021, embedding Robert Macfarlane’s poem of nuclear overreach and nature’s response in a post-military landscape; the theatre show ‘Love Letters to a Liveable Future’ (Cambridge Junction / Season for Change 2021); ‘Factory of the Future’, a video installation created in collaboration with architects, commissioned for the Oslo Architecture Triennale 2019; the Artsadmin Green Commission, ‘WE KNOW NOT WHAT WE MAY BE’ (Barbican Centre 2018), a performance installation imagining alternative economic conditions for addressing climate crisis; ‘World Factory’, exploring consumer capitalism through the lens of the global textile industry (Young Vic and UK tour; shortlisted for the Berlin Theatertreffen Stückemarkt 2016); ‘3rd Ring Out’, an emergency-planning-style ‘rehearsal’ for climate change (TippingPoint Commission Award; UK tour). 

As dramaturg, Zoë collaborates creatively on innovative productions of classic texts, including: ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Merchant of Venice’ (SWP @ The Globe); ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, ‘Measure for Measure’ and ‘The Changeling’ (Young Vic); Miss Julie’ (Aarhus Theatre, Denmark); ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Arden of Faversham’ (Royal Shakespeare Company); ‘Edward II’ (National Theatre). Her work has been developed through several artistic residencies, including at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (2014–15); the Future Scenarios “networked residency” (Jerwood Charitable Foundation, Open University, and Sheffield University, 2016–17); and at the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (2018–19).

Zoë lectures on drama and performance in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge, and is currently writing ‘Theatre & Dramaturgy’ for the Bloomsbury book series, Theatre &, for which she has been running workshops on dramaturgy for directors at the Young Vic, and writers at the Royal Court.

About Wellcome Collection

Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library exploring health and human experience. Its vision is to challenge how we all think and feel about health by connecting science, medicine, life and art. It offers changing curated exhibitions, museum and library collections, public events, in addition to a café. Wellcome Collection publishes books on what it means to be human, and collaborates widely to reach broad and diverse audiences, locally and globally.

Wellcome Collection actively develops and preserves collections for current and future audiences and, where possible, offers new narratives about health and the human condition. Wellcome Collection works to engage underrepresented audiences, including D/deaf, disabled, neurodivergent, and racially minoritised communities.

Wellcome Collection is part of Wellcome, which exists to improve health by helping great ideas to thrive. We support researchers, we take on big health challenges, we campaign for better science, and we help everyone get involved with science and health research. We are a politically and financially independent foundation.

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