The Oikos Project
By Bryan Savery, Producer at The Red Room
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It was at the ITC’s summer conference in 2009 when Stewart Wallis, Chief Executive of the New Economics Foundation, introduced The Moral Economy to the membership. This inspired The Red Room’s Oikos Project, a mission to creatively demonstrate a new way of thinking about climate change, one that follows the principals of people, planet and profit.
The Red Room’s mission is to “free the imagination from the status quo” and it was Topher Campbell, the company’s Artistic Director, who initially came up with the concept of creating a piece of work that responds to climate change on a human scale, one that tells the story of how everyone and anyone can make a difference beyond the statistics. |
The Jelly fish Theatre - photo by Brian Benson
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We initially wanted to produce a season of new plays, but there was something not very satisfying about presenting a piece of conventional theatre - we needed to do rather than just show. So, we developed The Oikos Project which consisted of 2 new plays by Simon Wu and Kay Adshead, the building of the UK’s first recycled and reused Theatre made entirely by found objects created by German architect Martin Kaltwasser and a full schools project in collaboration with Webplay.
The Power of Partnership
The Red Room always works in partnership with civil and creative organisations to deliver its work and uses this as a reference group. For the Oikos Project we were lucky enough to work with The Architecture Foundation, the Junction Cambridge, Nef, The National Theatre Studio, UCL-Environment Institute, Tipping Point, M3 Management Consultants, AKT, and Southwark Council. It was this unique mix of commercial, civil, trade and creative organisations that developed and reinforced the notion of a working practice that shared expertise and resources towards a greater goal.
To create a 120 seat theatre in the middle of London made entirely by hand from recycled or reused objects with volunteers was no easy task! However because of the working method and the organisations involved we were able to pull all our resources and expertise together. We applied for full planning permission and passed 8 levels of building control before being allowed to open to the public. As the theatre was made predominantly from wood we developed an excellent working relationship with the London Fire Brigade! The general fall back position for any public building would be to buy in pre-authorised manufactured materials to guarantee safety, but of course this was not an option for us – we wanted to demonstrate that there is another way of thinking. I am delighted to say that nearly 90% of our proposed alternative prototypes were passed by Building Control, the other 10% we will keep trying but will have to be next time!
Mission Accomplished!
We achieved our mission; we built The Jelly fish theatre with 125 volunteers, 17 tonnes of reclaimed and reused material (from schools desks to kitchen units), involved over 50 local businesses and community groups and over 2000 school children. We presented two new pieces of writing as well as offering the space out during its 3 month life to local groups and artists.
The idea was never to build a permanent space, it was designed to demonstrate a new way of thinking and creating, we wanted it to inspire, not be fixed. The whole building is being taken down and being recycled or reused – we have mapped where the objects have come from and where they are off to next.
For me the partnership working and point of the Oikos Project is summed up by an email I received from Polly Davies from M3 Consulting (a commercial building company) “(The Oikos Project)…encourages us to think beyond process and to re-establish our drive to solve problems through creative solutions, not financial ones!”
This method of working is certainly not new to ITC members, its what we do everyday. We creatively utilise all available resources, offer the public opportunities to participate, work in partnership to expand resources and reflect society in order to understand ourselves better. The Moral Economy is actually the foundation for a lot of arts companies. As we face some of the biggest challenges for the future in our sector, I wonder if this is our time to shine and show the rest of society that this is something we have been doing for years – and we are good at it!
www.oikosproject.com