Abstract
This presentation will explore rewilding Shakespeare’s plays as an ecological archive. Across the canon lie thousands of references to trees, herbs, flowers, spices, birds, insects, mammals, minerals, waters, and elemental forces—traces of an intricate ecosystem that early modern audiences would have recognised with both wonder and familiarity. How might these references can ed into patterns, webs, and visual constellations to inform pedagogy and performance today? By drawing on biophilic design principles and the tradition of cabinets of curiosity, participants will investigate how Shakespeare’s ecosystemic imagination may be visualised, embodied, and performed as a way of generating new ecological insights and practices.
