SARAH HARPER

The company Friches Théâtre Urbain conducts research on civic and cultural participation at neighbourhood level. It is currently leading a research project, Archiver l’Invisible (Archiving the Invisible) focused on the documenting of the urban evolution of Paris’s northern suburbs through the lens of participatory cultural projects.

Dr  SARAH HARPER
Sarah Harper is an artist, teacher and academic researcher. As lead artist with urban arts company Friches Théâtre Urbain, she creates community performances, site-specific and place-making projects and participatory art walks commissioned in response to sensitive social contexts. Her doctoral research at Queen Mary University of London focused on understanding refusal and non-participation in the Paris banlieue. Current research explores new models and methodologies of archival practice for the relational processes of participatory arts.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• socially engaged performance
• archival theory and counter-archives
• relational arts
• performance, urbanism and public space
• aesthetics of care and hospitality
• refusal and non-participation
• cultural policy, cultural value and everyday participation
• immersive and site-specific performance
• community

EDUCATION

• PhD in Drama, Queen Mary University of London, 2017 – 2023
• École Internationale de Mouvement Jacques Lecoq, Paris, 2 yr Professional Course and Laboratoire d’étude de mouvement
• University of Bristol, BA Drama Single Honours, Ist Class`

PUBLICATIONS

BOOK CHAPTER

• Harper, Sarah, ‘The Meaning and Importance of Refusals: is walking as accessible as we think?’ Walking Bodies: Papers, Provocations, Actions, ed. by Helen Billinghurst, Claire Hind, Phil Smith (Axminster: Triarchy Press, 2020), 214-224

JOURNAL ARTICLES (Peer reviewed)

• Harper, Sarah, “Oser la carte blanche : faire confiance aux artistes pour des projets plus authentiquement partagés”, Débats, Actualités Habitat /No. 1258 / juillet, 2026.
• Harper, Sarah, ‘The violent beauty of a banlieue wasteland garden’, Conjunctions: Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation, Vol 12, No 1 (2024), Sciendo.  https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/issue/view/11063
• Harper, Sarah, ‘Redefining failure. The value of refusal in participatory arts in the Paris banlieue’, Special edition ‘Failures in Cultural Participation’, ed. by Leila Jancovich and David Stephenson, Conjunctions: Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation, 7: 2 (2020), 1-15, https://doi.org/10.7146/tjcp.v7i2.119743 
• Harper, Sarah, ‘Tenderness Between Strangers: Intimate exchanges on banlieue  wastelands’, Performance Paradigms, special edition ‘Performance and Radical Kindness’, ed. by Emma Willis and Alys Longley, 16 (2021), 235-250,   https://www.performanceparadigm.net/index.php/journal/article/view/253
• Haedicke, Susan C. and Harper, Sarah, ‘Hope is a wooded time: an eco-performance of biodiversity in discarded geographic and social space’, Performing Ethos: An International Journal of Ethics in Theatre & Performance, ed. by Bronwyn Preece and Jess Allen, 5:1/2 (2015), 101-118, http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/69640/

IMPACT REPORTS

• Harper, Sarah, Rapport de diagnostic sensible, quartier Fossé de l’Aumône (Friches Théâtre Urbain, April 2025)

• Harper, Sarah, 25 Years of Scene & Heard, commissioned impact report for children’s charity Scene &             Heard  (Scene & Heard, April 2024), https://www.sceneandheard.org/impact/#study

Ph.D. THESIS

• • Harper, Sarah, ‘Understanding Refusal. Non-participation in participatory arts projects in the northern Paris banlieue.’  Queen Mary University of London, 2023. Supervision: Professor Jen Harvie and Professor Caoimhe McAvinchey (Queen Mary University).  Jury: Professor James Thompson (University of Manchester), Dr Regan Koch (Queen Mary University of London)  https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/items/c904ec82-fb51-40fc-88ba-5b85754db7b2

CONFERENCE PAPERS

• Archiver l’invisible’, Art et lien social : la culture dans les programmes de renouvellement urbain (cycle Art, culture et création dans la fabrique des territoires), MSH Paris Nord and Plaine Commune, 24 March 2026.
• ‘Conserver les friches par la médiation artistique’, webinaire : La reconquête des friches – les fausses bonnes idées,  l’Agence Régionale de la biodiversité IDF and L’Institut Paris Région, 17 October 2025. https://www.arb-idf.fr/cycle-de-webinaires-les-fausses-bonnes-idees/
• ‘Témoignages croisées’, with Andréa Haug, Particip-Arc, Journées du Réseau, 23-24 January 2025.
• ‘When the performance is just that – a performance. Or, how to document the truth?’, TAPRA annual conference, Documenting Performance working group, University of Leeds, 30th August 2023.

• ‘Archives de l‘invisible: the invisible archives of participatory arts practice in the northern Paris banlieue’, conference: ‘Shaking the Archive, Reconsidering the Role of Archives in Contemporary Society’, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 23-24 June, 2023.
• ‘Violence and the negotiated aesthetics of refusal’, conference: ‘Norms and Storms’, Participation Research Group, University of Leeds, 21 April, 2023
• ‘The Dynamics of Refusal and Ecologies of Exclusion in Participatory Agri-Cultural Projects with Immigrant Populations in the Paris Banlieue‘, IFTR Annual Conference, Galway (online), 12-16 July 2021.
• ‘The Great Crossing: reactivating a coal-field through walking’, conference: Walking’s New Movements, University of Plymouth, 1 November 2019.
• ‘L’Artiste en banlieue: Je Prends ma Place!‘ conference: Rencontre arts et aménagement dans les territoires du Grand Paris, organiser: Plaine Commune, Friche industrielle Babcock, La Courneuve, 8 November 2016.
• ‘Case study: Lieu Commun’, conference: ‘Comment produire des espaces publics? Projets d’artistes et experiences culturelles’, L’Avant Rue, conference series: Art en Espace publique, Université de Paris 1, Pantheon Sorbonne, 2010.
• ‘Case Study: L’Espwar est un temps boisé‘, conference: Projets Culturels dans l’Espace Publique, students of Master 2, dir: Pascal le Brun Cordier, Mairie de Montreuil, 2009.

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT / IMPACT

• Presentation: ‘Tendresse Radicale. Cas d’étude’, Chaire du Territoire, University Sorbonne – Paris 13 Villetaneuse, 19 November 2019.
• Presentation of participatory projects by Friches Théâtre Urbain to Insertion, Intervention Sociale sur les Territoires. IIST, seminar group, University Sorbonne- Paris 13, Villetaneuse, 20 November 2019.
• Peer reviewer, Intellect Books, Bristol, UK, 2024.
• Consultant artist to inter-communality Plaine Commune’s Chantiers de Venise. Inquiry and tool-kit development for arts accompanying urban development, 2019 – 2021.
• Consultant artist, Plaine Commune, Vue d’Ailleurs, Plaine Commune territoire de la culture et de la creation, Venice Biennial of Architecture. Round-table exchanges with mayors, director generals of local authorities, real-estate developers and artists implicated in the northern Paris suburbs on the role and importance of art in urban regeneration, 26 – 28 Sept 2018.
• Evaluation of final student projects for FAI AR (Formation Avancée et Itinérante des Arts de la Rue), professional street arts training program, Marseille 2013.
• Mentor to students’ final project for FAI AR (Formation Avancée et Itinérante des Arts de la Rue), Marseille 2011.

RESEARCH PROJECT 

• Archiver l’invisible : une archive des arts participatifs (2025 – ongoing),  partners :  Maison des Sciences Humaines et sociales Paris Nord (Unité d’Appui et de Recherche, UAR 3258 soutenue par le CNRS, les universités Paris 8 et Sorbonne Paris Nord) and Plaine Commune.

PRACTICE AS RESEARCH

• 2017-18. Who’s Driving the Tractor? Conversations with Women in UK Agriculture, in collaboration with Dr. Susan Haedicke, University of Warwick, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures, Food GRP – Warwick Food Group, Warwick Crop Centre, Department of Life Sciences. Performance-lecture, verbatim theatre with integrated women’s voices for farms and the National Farmers Union,   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc-jwkk6p_8
• 2013 Future Foodscapes: Grow Warwick. Interdisciplinary collaboration between University of Warwick’s Dept. of Theatre and Performance and Food Security Global Research Priority Group. A mapping and visual installation on the Warwick campus that imagined its transformation into an edible campus. In collaboration with Dr. Susan Haedicke and Professor Rosemary Collier.
• 2012 -14. Hope is a Wooded Time, Montreuil, France. Friches Théâtre Urbain in association with the University of Warwick Food Security GRP research group. Art walks engaging the surrounding communities in the appropriation and maintenance of a protected urban wood. In collaboration with Dr. Susan Haedicke.