Dr Shauna Janssen, PhD

Dr Shauna Janssen

I am an interdisciplinary artist-researcher, curator, performance designer, and educator working and living in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal, on the unceded Indigenous lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation. My teaching, research, and creative practice are consonant with performative, site-specific, intersectional, interdisciplinary, socially-engaged and collaborative approaches to performance creation. 

At Concordia I am Associate Dean of Academic Programs and Pedagogy in the Faculty of Fine Arts. I am also Associate Professor of Performance Creation in the Department of Theatre, Creative Director of PULSE, and Studio Director of Immersive Storytelling housed at Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology.  I am co-investigator researcher with Hexagram réseau de recherche-création en arts, cultures et technologies. Between 2018 and 2023 I was appointed a Concordia University Research Chair in Performative Urbanism, and from 2018-2020 I was the Director of Concordia's Institute for Urban Futures. 

My transversal approach to teaching has been shaped by twenty years as an educator and organizer in the field of theatre and twenty years experience working professionally, in the performing and live arts; devising, staging, producing and touring, nationally and internationally new contemporary Canadian works created for theatre, opera, and dance. In Canada, I have worked with companies such as Volcano Theatre, Theatre Columbus, the Tarragon and Factory Theatres, Queen of Puddings, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, among others, as well as toured with theatre projects to the Belfry Theatre, Citadel Theatre, the Manitoba Theatre Centre, and the National Arts Centre.

Current research-creation activities are focused on the dramaturgy and creation of new media performance, and site-responsive mixed reality scenographies that critically engage 3D visualization technologies in queer and feminist productions of space. My ongoing research and creation activities are focused on performative and curatorial engagements with the spatial politics of urban change, and often takes the form of site-specific urban interventions, feminist, collaborative art and community-engaged projects.  

In Montreal, I have collaborated with a variety of artist run centres including La Fonderie Darling, Heritage Montréal, Centaur Theatre, Montréal Arts Interculturel, Le Sud-Ouest de Montréal, Parks Canada, and the Centre d’histoire de Montréal. I am a founding member and formerly co-director of Points de vue, a Montreal based community-engaged art, research, and urban activist platform. I have given public lectures and presentations at Mutek (2019), L'Observatoire des médiations culturelles (2022), and for cultural institutions such as the Canadian Centre for Architecture (Ephemeral City, 2010), Articule (“Would you be my curator?” 2012), SBC Gallery, and The McCord Museum (City Talks, 2013). Between 2018 and 2022 I served as the Quebec Representative for the Canadian Association of Theatre Research (CATR). Since 2019 I have been an associate artist with Imago Theatre (Montreal), focusing on feminist approaches to urban dramaturgy and performance creation. In 2014, I was the Associate Producer and Production Director for Manifest: Choreographing Social Movements in the Americas, the 9th Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University, which was hosted by Concordia and attended by over eight hundred artists, scholars, and activists from across the Americas. 

My research-creation projects are supported by the Social Sciences Humanities and Research Council, the Fonds de recherché Québec - Société et Culture (FRQ-SC), and the Office of the Vice President Research and Graduate Studies, Concordia University, and Hexagram. I am currently a co-investigator on two SSHRC Partnership Grants: "Hemispheric Encounters: Developing Transborder Research-Creation Practices." (PI, Dr Laura Levin, 2020-2027), and  "Staging Better Futures/Mettre en scène de meilleurs avenirs." (PIs Drs Jennifer Roberts Smith and Nicole Nolette, 2023-2030). 

I regularly supervise graduate researchers working across and/or at the intersections of contemporary performance creation, architecture and design, immersive and new media technologies, geography and urban studies, and studio arts - housed within Concordia's Individualized Program, and/or the Humanities PhD, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture. If you are a potential graduate student and would like to work with me, I am interested in supervising research projects focused on contemporary performance and spatial practices taking place within the city, artistic investigations with the spatial politics of urban change, site-specific and intermedial performance creation, political approaches to scenographic practices, (histories of) art and urban activism, expanded and new media dramaturgy, queer and feminist performance practices, interdisciplinary and hemispheric performance research-creation methodologies, and open to working with adjacent fields of study. Research-creation applicants must have a strong commitment to critical theory and writing, as well as practice.

Teaching areas

Undergraduate courses taught:
SCEN 411        Urban Scenographies (Studio/Field School Program)
PERC 412        Expanded Dramaturgy - Contemporary Perspectives & Practices (SEMINAR)
PERC 486        Site Specific Performance Creation Practices (STUDIO)
PERC 312        Gender and Sexuality in Performance (SEMINAR)
PERC 211        Theatre and the City (LECTURE)
ARTX 498        Site-Responsive Public Art (STUDIO ARTS)
DFTT 498        Installation Art Practices & Public Space (DESIGN STUDIO)
ARTH 354       Histories of Design for Performance and Scenography (ART HISTORY)  

Graduate seminar and directed studies:
INDI  80I         Interdisciplinary Approaches to Performance Research Creation Methods                             

Primary Thesis Supervision

Current PhD supervision

Jacob Caines, PhD Candidate Individualized Program, "The Ontology and Culture of Queer Classical Performance, Urban Geographies, and Community Engaged Art."  (research-creation, SSHRC funded)

Kévin Pinvidic, PhD Candidate Individualized Program, "Matérialité urbaine augmentée." (research-creation, SSHRC funded)

Jamie Woollard, PhD Candidate Individualized Program, "Thins Walls/ Voisines." (research-creation)

Laura Acosta, PhD Candidate Humanities Program, "Other Futures: Dislocations and Augmented Fabulations." (research-creation)

Syd Hosseini, PhD Candidate Individualized Program, VR & Theatre Performance. (research-creation)

in Shaping Colombia's Post-Conflict Future", co-supervised with Dr Laura Levin

2024-2026 (Connected Minds Postdoc Fellowship, York University)

Distinctions & Awards

2021 Recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award, Faculty of Fine Arts (emerging category)

Funded Research-Creation Projects

2023-2024
Principal Investigator SSHRC Explore program - "New Media Performance & Mixed Reality Scenographies." $5,000

2023-2030
Co-investigator, with Drs Jennifer Roberts Smith and Nicole Nolette
(Principal Investigators): SSHRC Partnership Grant, "Staging Better Futures/Mettre en scène de meilleurs avenirs." $2.499,000.

2020-2027
Co-investigator, with Laura Levin (Principal Investigator): SSHRC Partnership Grant - "Hemispheric Encounters: Developing Transborder Research-Creation Practices." $2.499,000.

2022-2023
Principal Investigator Zù & Concordia University Creative Research Fellowship (Office of Vice President Research & Graduate Studies). $10,000

2018-2023
Concordia University Research Chair in Performative Urbanism (New Scholar, Office of Vice President Research & Graduate Studies). $145,000.

2020-2023
Principal Investigator, FRQSC - "Digital Performativity of Public Space: Scenographic Approaches to Augmented Reality and Place-based Storytelling." $74,000.

2020-2023
Co-investigator, with Dr Cynthia Hammond (Principal Investigator): SSHRC Partnership Development Grant - "La Ville extraordinaire." $200,000.

2020-2021

Principal Investigator. Aid to Research Related Events, Exhibition, Publication and Dissemination Activities (ARRE) Program. (OVPRGS internal award). $5,000.

2020-2021 (extended to 2022)

Co-applicant. SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant: Déconstruction du pont Champlain : co-création de propositions de récupération des matériaux et engagement citoyen. Dr Alice Jarry PI. $25,000

Current and ongoing research interests: 

• site-specific performance creation
•       interdisciplinary approaches to performance creation
• feminist spatial practices
• queer art practices
• performance & extended reality environments
• theatre & architecture
• scenographic practices
• art & public space
• immersive storytelling & performance
• intermedial theatre & performance creation
• scenography as research & method
• critical disability studies
• urban and spatial dramaturgy
• spatial politics of urban change - urban art & activism

Books/ chapters

Janssen, S. "this space is for you: towards a Queer-feminist and tender digitality to designing site-specific mixed reality scenographics." Editors, Greer Crawley and Carolina E. Santos, Women's Innovation in Theatre, Dance and Performance, Volume 3: Designers and Crafters. Bloomsbury. (forthcoming)

Janssen, S. and Joanne Paterson Kinniburgh. 2025. “‘Fantasy in the Hold’ : the Logistics of Container Architecture, Trans*ivity, and Queer Port Urbanisms.” Editors, Jill Didur and Nalini Mohabir. (Post) Colonial Ports: Place and Non-Place in the Ecotone. Routledge.

Hammond, C., S. Janssen, Crave, E. 2023. "Promenade Parlante: Intergenerational Dialogue, Urban Scenography, and Co-Creation." Editors, Anna Urbaniak and Anna Wanka. Routledge International Handbook of Participatory Approaches in Ageing Research.

Peer reviewed journal articles

Janssen, S., Theatre Architecture(s) & Spatial Justice. Guest editor for Canadian Theatre Review Vol. 208 (forthcoming University of Toronto Press 2026).

Levin, L and S. Janssen, "This space is for you: Performing Site through Mixed Reality and Volumetric Capture." XR Performance. Canadian Theatre Review, Vol. 202 Spring 2025. https://doi.org/10.3138/ctr.202.007

Janssen, S. (2024). Theatre Island and Urban Scenographies of Learning: A Performative Paradigm for Transversal Pedagogy. PARtake: The Journal of Performance As Research, Issue 10, Special Retrospective Issue. 

Janssen, S., Jurjans, K., Perez, E., scott, c. (2022). Mediating a Performative Response to Contested Urban Landscapes: Gorilla Park. JAR - journal for artistic research. 

Janssen, S. (2021). Theatre Island and Urban Scenographies of Learning: A Performative Paradigm for Transversal Pedagogy. PARtake: The Journal of Performance As Research, 3 (2). https://doi.org/10.33011/partake.v3i2

Janssen, S. (2019) Performance design as mnemonic device for critical engagement with the spatial politics of urban change: the ARCADE project, Journal of Theatre and Performance Design, 5:3-4, 195-211, 

https://doi.org/10.1080/23322551.2019.1690234

Hammond, C.,  Shauna Janssen. (2016) Points de vue: Agency, Contingency, Community and the Postindustrial Turn. FIELD: a journal of socially-engaged art criticism, 3. http://field-journal.com/issue-3/points-de-vue-agency-contingency-community-and-the-postindustrial-turn

Monographs/ Exhibition Texts

Janssen, S. 2024. "Scenographies of Site-writing Across the Americas." In hello stranger. Editors, Kathryn Sandys & Lucy Thornett. (Forthcoming)

Janssen, S. 2023. "Urban Scenographics: methods, practices and pedagogies towards unsettling existing perceptions of place.” In Espacios y Objetos Performativos. Rodrigo Tisi, ed. Ediciones ARQ, de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Janssen, S. 2022. “Urban Scenographics and Performative Mappings of Place in the work of Larissa Fassler.” Larissa Fassler: Viewshed. Ed. Diana Sherlock. Berlin: DISTANZ. In German, English, French.

Janssen, S. 2021. "Camouflaged Screams: Immersive and Scenographic Constructions of Wilding." Exhibition text for Camouflaged Screams. Artists Laura Acosta and Santiago Tavera. Optica, Montreal. In English, French, Spanish.

Janssen, S., Hannah, D. 2017. PhoneHome: Architecture A/ Part. XX Architecture and Urbanism Biennial, “Unpostponable Dialogues.” Exhibition catalogue. Valparaiso, Chile. In Spanish, English.

Janssen, S. 2017. “‘Fantasy in the Hold’: PhoneHome: Architecture A/ Part”. Exhibition text. Architecture and Urbanism Biennial. Valparaiso, Chile. In English, Spanish.

this space is for you/ cet espace est pour toi

"Mixed Reality Scenographics: towards performative and queer orientations."

Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ talks). 13 June 2023

Feminist Scenographies

Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ talks). 10 June 2023

this space is for you: the poetics of staging intermedial sites

Colloque: "Réinventer la scène". Montreal, 1-3 June 2023. https://reinventer-la-scene.labocinemedias.ca/en/home/

Urban Scenographics : partial perspectives and unsettling existing perceptions of place

Invited speaker. « COHABITER, Imaginer les médiations culturelles au 21e siècle ». Montreal. 1-3 June 2022. 

Post-pandemic perspectives on ecologies of performing urban place in Montreal

Theatre Ecologies: Environment, Sustainability, and Politics, conference of the International Federation of Theatre Research, Galway. 13-18 July 2021. Online.

Fantasy in the Hold: The Queer Logistics of Critical Mobilities and Container Architecture

Post/Colonial Port Cities: Place and Nonplace in the Ecotone. Concordia University, Montreal. 24-26 October 2019

Desiring the Dark: Feminist Scenographies, the City, and the Night

this space is for you ‘glimmering deviations’ : towards a tender dramaturgy for crafting place-based extended reality scenographics

Performance Studies International #29 @ University of Arts London, UK. 20-23 June 2024

this space is for your - towards a dramaturgy of glimmering deviations

Artist talk @ Zurich University for the Arts, Immersive Arts Centre. 5 December 2023.

Notes from the field: on urban curating, postindustrial ecologies, place, and critical posthumanism

University Art History Association Canada, Quebec City, 24-26 October 2019

From Vagrant Scenographies to Urban Speculative Gestures: a Feminist Turn

Performance lecture with Dr Kristine Samson for the Prague Quadrennial. 10 June 2019.

Urban Scenographies: SmArting the City

Co-workshop leader with Dorita Hannah, "Urban Scenographies: SmArting the City." Prague Quadrennial Studio Series. 13-15 June 2019

this space is for you

Artist. this space is for you/ cet espace est pour toi. Mixed Reality Scenography. With Kévin Pinvidic. For « Acts of Assembly. » Performance Space Program, Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design & Space 2023. Curator Andrew Filmer.  June 8-18 2023

BoutiqueArcade

Artist-Curator. Public Art Installation. Collaboration with Stephen Lawson and Aaron Pollard. Performance Arcade, Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand. 6 February - 6 March 2020.

Les Voisines

Dramaturge. Les Voisines. Urban audiowalk. Created by Arianna Bardesono. Produced by IMAGO Theatre. Montreal, May 2019.

Promenade parlante: Episodes in a Changing City

Curator. Janssen, S., C. Hammond. (2018-19)Promenade parlante: Episodes in a
Changing City. Public art walk co-created with the founders of the Living History Project, and Eric Craven.,12 October.

Sabina

Artist and co-creator with Dorita Hannah. Sabina. Multimedia performance installation. Citta Invisibili at Teatro Potlatch, Fara Sabina, Italy. June 2018.

PhoneHome

Multimedia Installation. Co-curator with Dorita Hannah and Jo Paterson Kinniburgh. XX Architecture and Urbanism Biennial, Valparaiso, Chile. October-November 2017.

Feminist City Light Capers

Artist. Spatial Interventions. With Cynthia Hammond and Caroline Alexander. 2017-2023.

Islandness: Spatial Histories of Longing

Artist. Site-specific installation. Collaboration with Jo Paterson Kinniburgh. “Performing, Writing” Symposium, University of Massey, New Zealand. March 2017.      

Visting artist-researcher

Matters of Activity. Cluster of Excellence Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. October - December 2023.

Visiting scholar and public lecture

"Urban Scenographies." DesignLab, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez. Santiago, Chile. December, 2022. ONLINE

Invited speaker

“The Scenographic City.” School of Performance and Cultural Industries University of Leeds, UK. 14 January 2022. ONLINE.

Invited researcher - workshop leader

"Dramaturgy of virtual environments and storytelling atelier.” Utrecht, Netherlands. 12 April 2021. ONLINE

Visiting scholar and public lecture

“Performative Urbanism.” Department of Communication and Arts, University of Roskilde, Denmark. 15 February – 1 March 2018.