Journal ISSUE #4

Issue #4 — Editorial: 'Experiments in Feeling'

We are pleased to present CePRA Journal’s fourth and most extensive issue to date. The rich array of work presented here responds to a call out, framed by this quotation from Lola Olufemi's Experiments in Imagining Otherwise:

Here is my method: above all, feeling! I aim, through experiments in feeling, to reveal and destroy what it is that keeps us here, what it is that stops us from deciding to leave even as the cinders mix with our hair, the smoke corrupts our lungs, the flames engulf the people we love. Only when we know this can we activate the bond of the otherwise and turn back to meet it. (Olufemi 2021, p8)

This methodological provocation invites reflection about the felt dimensions of practice research – ‘to feel’ as to confront, to reveal, to transform - and the need for this amid multiple crises. Imbued with fiery imagery, Olufemi’s statement evokes the need to untangle and dismantle socio-political conditions that exist, and persist, in order to imagine alternative ways of being in the world. What might the role of practice research be in this process of activating the otherwise?

The author-practitioners featured respond through detailed – often anecdotal – insights into their chosen method, with creative processes situated as a means of making sense of lived experience or reimagining what is possible in their different contexts. Critical perspectives and subjectivities are laced together to interrogate the potential of creative experimentations within practice traditions.

In Hello? Alison Peirse addresses the gendered telephonic trope of the horror genre. Through an audiovisual essay, Peirse intervenes to construct an alternative narrative ending for the female characters in five canonical slasher films. In part aiming to redress the erasure of marginalised literary voices, Terry Bradford shares a psuedotranslation of Le Foulard et les gants – a fictitious source text. Bradford reflects on questions brought about by the act of pseudotranslation, including the playful presence of the translator through annotations and the significance of positionality in the context of queer fiction. In a very different kind of translation, Michelle Duxbury experiments with the conversion of images into soundscapes to create On Becoming A Ghost, an audiovisual project seeking to convey the somatic experience of disability and chronic illness. Duxbury invites readers into the making process, highlighting the role of intuition and feeling when responding to various stimuli. Meanwhile, Eirini Boukla presents Zeibekiko dance – reimagined in To Stand Despite All Possibilities to Fall through archival footage and tactics of deacceleration – as a conduit for individual and collective catharsis, confronting generational trauma and resilience.

The affective potential of archival material is also explored by Cătălina Zlotea, who creatively (re)presents the archive of Romanian photographer, Dragoș Lumpan, in combination with the ‘intangible archive’ of ‘inherited memory’. Zlotea reflects on how visual storytelling design can draw attention to the felt experience and emotional landscape of 1990s post-communist Romania. Pursuing an ontological exploration of ‘between’-ness that challenges binary thinking, Jamie Stephenson introduces the term ‘ambient grindcore’ and its manifestation within Plague Ambience – a collaborative output comprised of two original compositions. Following this, Peter Petkovsek reflects on the potential of salsa dancing as a conduit for community memory, identity, and resistance, rooted in place. This is exemplified through the co-created community theatre performance project Donde meter la cabeza, developed in Cali, Colombia. Rachel Nisbet presents interviews and podcast editing as feeling-led practice methods, recounting their role in an ongoing research project that explores the cultural value of the White Rose Forest. Finally, Yaxin Wang shares how the intersection of Theatre in Education practice, gaming, and audio walks – and the subsequent multi-sensory immersion – can facilitate reflections on identity and belonging for international students.

Many thanks to each contributor for sharing thoughtful reflections on the practice research projects presented here. Thanks also to Ewan Stefani and Scott McLaughlin, the directors of CePRA, for their continued support.

With warmest wishes,

Georgie Hook

The CePRA Journal Editorial Board: Benjamin Jenner, Georgie Hook, David Randall-Goddard, (Reem Alshammari, Boyang Liang)

Autumn 2025