We’ve Been Here

agnieszka

A multi-layered immersive participatory performance exploring global conflict through the perspectives of older women. The work informs ongoing research on intersection between participatory (auto)biographical performance, digital technology and empathy, while investigating dramaturgical strategies used within such work. 

    Project details

    Project leadAgnieszka Blonska
    Start date2021
    End dateOngoing
    Department & Centre AlignmentAcademy of Music & Theatre Arts and Centre for Blended Realities

    Drawing on feminist studies, this practice based research uses a live, digital, and immersive performance to explore older women lived experiences of war and political turmoil. Co-created with a global group of grandmothers using movement, creative captioning, spatial audio, and binaural sound, it reflects on personal encounters with systemic violence and intergenerational resistance. We’ve Been Here aligns with AMATA’s mission to create socially engaged work and CBR’s digital innovation priorities.  

    This inquiry responds to the marginalisation of female perspectives in conflict studies answering the questions: what critical insights can be recovered from older women’s lived experiences? And what knowledge related to political troubles do they want to pass on to future generations? By centring the underrepresented narratives, the project investigates the intersection of gender, ageing, and conflict memory to provide new insights into feminist geopolitics. 

    Localised in a qualitative oral history approach, the work builds on the legacy of global activist movements, including the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Raging Grannies, and Granny Peace Brigade. 

    The five-year methodology progressed from digital film development during 2020 lockdowns into a R&D phase between 2022–2023 involving a steering group of 7 grandmothers and 40 Penwith-based participants, testing performative and audio material, the use of immersive technology and test screenings of 360 film in Market Hall, Plymouth. The recent 2025–2026 phase focused on exploration of dramaturgy of biographical testimonies and spatial sound. 

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    Project team

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    Project lead - Agnieszka Blonska

    Agnieszka Blonska is a theatre director and researcher based in the UK since 2003. For over the last 20 years she has worked in Britain and internationally as an independent artist and in collaboration with theatre companies and theatres such as Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, National Theatre Studio in London, Soho Theatre, Tate St Ives, Theatre Institute in Warsaw,  Theatre Bristol, Hall For Cornwall, Wildworks Theatre, Desperate Men, DotComedy, Mercurial Wrestler, imPOSSIBLE Producing, Projekt Europa and Circomedia in Bristol.  

    Read more

    This project, developed over the years, involved various teams. All are listed below:  

    2025/26 

    Participant/Protagonist/Consultant/Voice: Mercedes Kemp 

    Directors: Agnieszka Blonska & Jennifer Fletcher 

    Executive Producer: Katie Keeler 

    Sound Designer: Ciaran Clarke 

    Sound Engineer: Christian Aindow 

    Production Support: James Scarle, Keith Jones 

    Mentor in Sound: Designing Gareth Fry 

    Photo: Steve Tanner 

    2022/24 

    Directors: Agnieszka Blonska & Jennifer Fletcher 

    Producer: Hannah Brady 

    Sound edit/consultant: Ciaran Clarke 

    Sound recordist: Claud Tonietto 

    Composer: Julie Macrara 

    360 film: Natasha Batorijs 

    Additional film: Michael Eddy 

    Photo: Abi Galatia  

    Participants Consultants:  

    • Mercedes Kemp 
    • Emma Gibson 
    • Lucy Birbeck 
    • Mel Mitchell 
    • Kate Barden 
    • Leif Olsen 
    • Alice King 

    2021/22 

    Directors: Agnieszka Blonska & Jennifer Fletcher 

    Film: Steve Tanner 

    Edit: Ian Kingsnorth  

    Participants/Protagonists/Performers: 

    • Gill Kane 
    • Eliza Potter 
    • Suki Potter  

    Funders

    Over the years ‘We’ve Been Here’ had been supported by Arts Council England, Immersive Business Lab Falmouth University, Real Ideas Organisation, Feast Cornwall, Creative UK, Hall For Cornwall, Screen Cornwall and Creative Kernow via Immersive Innovation Programme 2025/2026, Centre for Blended Realties and AMATA at Falmouth University. 

    Outputs & outcomes

    We’ve Been Here include a series of short films, immersive digital media, a live sharing at The Newlyn and Exchange Gallery (June 2023), a showcase at Hall for Cornwall (September 2023), and an R&D audio immersive performance at AMATA (November 2025) repeated at Imagination Unleashed at Hall For Cornwall (February 2026). 

    Impact & recognition

    The project, in continuous development, aims to generate a cultural and social impact by empowering older women as active cultural witnesses rather than passive survivors. It models a scalable, ethical methodology for transforming localised, fragile oral history into high impact, innovative art.