The V&A is a family of museums dedicated to the power of creativity. Their mission is to champion design and creativity in all its forms, advance cultural knowledge, and inspire makers, creators and innovators everywhere. They share a 5,000 year old story of creativity through exhibitions, events, educational programmes, digital experiences, conservation, research and an ever-evolving national collection of over 2.8 million objects spanning every creative discipline.

The British Association of Decadence Studies (BADS) is an international scholarly association that brings together academics and practitioners in order to explore the field of decadence in the broadest sense, from the perspective of various cultures and multiple disciplines, from antiquity to the present day, including written, visual, performative, and audible texts, in English and in other languages. BADS is based in the UK, but its aims and outlook are transnational, transcultural, and inclusive, and our events are open to all.

The DRC is a research centre based at Goldsmiths, University of London. It is home to the interdisciplinary online journal, Volupté, and the British Association of Decadence Studies (BADS), providing intellectual anchorage for an international community of decadence scholars. Their researchers explore the field of decadence in the broadest sense, from the perspective of various cultures and multiple disciplines, from antiquity to the present day. They embrace the field’s increasing internationalism and interdisciplinarity, cutting across literature, visual art, theatre, dance, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, political science, live art, spoken word, and music.

Staging Decadence began its life as a two-year Fellowship funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, although it has since developed into an ongoing initiative for fostering new collaborations, publications and events. You can find some of the partners and collaborators that we’ve worked with in the past below.

IKLECTIK are a nonprofit creative organisation based in London focusing on experimentation within sound, art, new media, emerging technologies and cross disciplinary works. Their research initiatives and collaborations with academic institutions inform their curation and event selection. Over the last 10 years they’ve hosted live performances from over 3000 emerging and established international artists across 1600+ live shows, 21 festivals, and 23 fundraisers.

Rich Mix is a creative arts centre that opened in East London in 2006. It is a major arts hub presenting live theatre, music, dance, cinema and visual arts and is one of the most dynamic and diverse arts centres in the capital. Rich Mix was founded with the aims of celebrating British art and cultural diversity, combatting racial discrimination and fostering positive social relationships in racially diverse communities. They present work by a vast cast of new, emerging and established artists from across society.

HERE is a multi-award-winning arts centre based in downtown New York City. They’ve hosted over a million audience members and supported over 14,000 artists since their founding in 1993, presenting work across multiple theatres, in their exhibition space, and in site-specific locations throughout NYC. They offer diverse and eclectic cultural programming that spans contemporary and devised theatre, opera, performance art, dance, puppetry, visual art, and cross-media work. Their HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) has created a model for devised theatre programs throughout the country, offering artists long-term developmental support and mentorship.

Veronica is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Brighton, and Course Leader for the MA Fashion Curation and Cultural Programming at London College of Fashion. She has a background in the museum sector and worked for the Department of Theatre and Performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum for over ten years. She has also carried out freelance projects with museums and private collections around Britain and lectures widely. She also works as a curatorial consultant and freelance writer. Her research focuses on the history of dress and theatre costume from the late 18th century to the mid-20th century, and she is committed to promoting further academic research into the History of Costume for Performance.

Owen G. Parry is an artist and researcher working in contemporary theatre, live art, visual and digital processes, and an Associate Lecturer in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. Owen completed his PhD on Trashy Tendencies in Contemporary Art and Performance at Goldsmiths in 2014, exploring waste and excess as logics of cultural production. He has since developed the Fan Riot project exploring fandom as a subversive network that drove the internet, including a post-doctoral fellowship at IASH, University of Edinburgh 2018-19. Owen has an expansive performance and visual arts practice synthesising avant-garde and pop culture with the creation of fictional artefacts and fake occultist techniques. He creates playful situations and experiences (often with others) for the production of new, imaginary languages, communities, worlds and images. www.owengparry.com