NOTE: The talk has been moved to the 12th floor of Niels Treschows house (map here). After the talk there will be a lecture-performance by Mpume Mthombeni.
Drawing on traditions of storytelling, story-listening, call-and-response and contemplative enquiry, the work of the Empatheatre collective creates a “third space” where citizens and diverse publics can grapple collectively with complex social phenomena. Its transdisciplinary, research-based theatre approach democratizes the research process from beginning to end: communities co-define questions, co-produce data, and actively participate in analysing findings, challenging long-standing hierarchies that have limited public participation in academic and policy spaces.
Through iterative cycles of community storytelling, script co-development, public performance, and facilitated citizen assemblies, Empatheatre creates socially and politically robust forms of knowledge that honour scientific, cultural, spiritual, and experiential ways of knowing. Empatheatre’s work has achieved significant national and international impact. For example, their play Lalela uLwandle, which emerged from extensive collaborative research with coastal communities, has been presented in parliament, at UN forums, and in international climate negotiations. The play and its animated adaptation have also been used as evidence in landmark South African court cases, helping establish new legal precedents for recognising intangible cultural heritage in environmental governance and contributing to the successful challenge of offshore oil and gas exploration rights.
This talk reflects on Empatheatre’s evolving methodology as a form of transgressive, participatory justice and a growing global practice of collaborative meaning-making in times of crises: an imaginative, empathic “social technology” for navigating poly-crisis conditions and reimagining democratic decision-making in turbulent times.
Over the past decade, Empatheatre—co-founded by Mpume Mthombeni, Neil Coppen and Dylan McGarry—has emerged as a groundbreaking form of public pedagogy and democratic knowledge-making in South Africa. Across more than a decade of practice, the collective has convened thousands of public dialogues, citizen assemblies, and community tribunals across South Africa, Europe, North America, and other African regions. The collective has received numerous national and international awards, including the prestigious 2022 Bertha Foundation Artivist Award.
Their work has responded to a wide spectrum of social concerns—including street-level drug addiction, xenophobia, public-housing conflict, and gentrification—while also intervening in urgent environmental and ecological crises. Productions such as Soil & Ash, Lalela uLwandle, Umkhosi Wenala, Unruly, and their current play Isitha Sabantu have supported mining-affected communities, ocean defenders, and those resisting oil and gas extraction, as well as citizens experiencing human–wildlife conflict as urbanization encroaches on natural habitats.