Barbara Touati-Evans

I am a theatre-maker and director working across Hampshire and the UK. My background is in new writing and site-responsive performance; I ran High Hearted Theatre with writer Marcelo Dos Santos, making productions for Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, Greenwich + Docklands International Festival, Southwark Playhouse, Brighton Fringe, Omnibus London and more. I currently work mostly in participatory practice and co-creation, creating work in collaboration with professional creatives and communities. I am also an artist-researcher with a particular interest in place, space and identity, and how theatre for social change.

I am an award-winning visual artist using moving image to create video art and installations, often incorporating multidisciplinary, site-specific and live artworks. The main focus of my work is how art and technology can be used to explore the embodiment of space by the self and other, while challenging notions of absence and presence, real and simulated, and live versus mediated experience. I use specialised equipment and innovative filmmaking techniques to engage audiences, allowing them to bring their own sense of self and experiences to the artworks.

I’m an artist and creative producer with a wealth of experience of founding arts ventures and running arts venues, programmes, events, exhibitions and festivals – with a focus on fun and innovative approaches to animating underused spaces. Most recently I’ve had the privilege of setting up Saint John’s Arts’ Programme, collaborating with a large Education Trust to provide new exciting opportunities for young people to get involved in the arts in Gosport. I’ve also worked as Producer for Journeys Festival International, and held previous roles at ArtSpace Portsmouth, Liverpool Biennial and founded The Royal Standard (gallery, studios and social workspace), and Mighty Oak Creative Agency.