Evren Wilder Elliott in Residence February 2024

We are pleased to announce Evren Wilder Elliott as our February 2024 Speculative Play and Just Futurities resident scholar.  

While in residence, Wilder Elliott will research and collaborate towards his latest project, Imagining Home: liberatory theatre and speculative solutions for housing justice. This project brings together community members impacted by housing insecurity to share their stories and seek new futures through the collaborative process of legislative theatre.

Originally imagined by Augusto Boal in Brazil in 1992 and since practiced all over the world, legislative theatre invites an audience to actively engage in the storytelling process and participate in decision-making by creating interactive moments within a play. This allows the audience to intervene, propose solutions, and explore the consequences of different actions.  

About Evren Wilder Elliott

Evren Wilder Elliott (he/they) is an artist, facilitator, and storyteller from Wabash, Indiana who has called Indianapolis his home for the past decade. He serves as Co-President on the Board of Directors of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, Inc., an international organization that supports people whose work challenges oppressive systems by promoting critical thinking and social justice through liberatory theatre and popular education. He led the organization in their annual international conference in Indianapolis in June 2023. Evren also serves as a community advisor for the Indy East Promise Neighborhood, is a member of the board of Fonseca Theatre, and serves as a collaborator for a variety of community building endeavors.  In addition to SPJF fellowship, Evren has received support from a Power Plant Grant through Big Car Collaborative, made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts. 

Speculative Play and Just Futurities is made possible through the generous support of the Mellon Foundation. SPJF is a collaboration between the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute, the Center for Africana Studies and Culture, and the Ray Bradbury Center. Learn more about the program here.