In autumn of 2010 the phenomenon of ‘Greek crisis’ was aggressively developed to a new experience of Greece. As a theatre practitioner from Athens, the specific historical time pushed me to question big-scale narratives of identity, home and belonging-ness. I relocated my training outdoors. My aim was to create a site-specific performance process that investigates place as a psychophysical experience and the ways through which it integrates with the cultural practices embedded in situ. The thesis builds around a Geographical/Buddhist framework where a cultural landscape epistemology outlined by Mitch Rose and John Wylie (2006) is realised through the practice of samatha vipashyana. The accounts of Rose and Wylie organise the examination of space as a body-landscape interrelationship. The Buddhist notion of mindfulness (sati) structures the investigation of the experience in space through theatre and dance disciplines in situ. The Buddhist concept of selflessness (anatta) permeates the performance practice in situ as a discipline of presence. Designated as Geopoetics, the practice of thesis applies meditation practices of breathing and walking to explore site through movement, feeling and activity. It further extends such a process via the disciplines of Somatics, Grotowski-based actor training and Dilley’s ‘dance.art.lab’. It employs the notions of ‘story’ from the Six Viewpoints system and ‘living myth’ of Anna Halprin to formulate a devising process of site-specific performance as an enactment of interrelationship between subject(s) and space. Geopoetics creates experiential containers within which the participant/ watcher is enabled to contemplate and re-examine her political, perceptual and emotional present. Based on its methodology of mindfulness (sati) notions of ‘identity’, ‘home’ and ‘sense of belonging’ are seen as individual or collective modes of attachment which altogether co-formulate the event of landscape. The practice of Geopoetics suggests an inquiry of place through the body for site-specific devisers and performers. It also relates to the discipline of architects, geographers and planners as a practice which investigates space’s contextual paradoxes and dynamics through the body.

The food we consume and how it is produced constitutes a significant driver of environmental change, degrading the ecological base on which life depends. Moreover, the food system is highly globalized and geographically scattered, connected by global value chains. This creates potential vulnerabilities. The covid 19 pandemic exposed many of these vulnerabilities and disrupted daily life globally in an unprecedented manner. Some argue that a re-localization of supply chains could constitute a crucial role in crisis response and in making food systems more adaptive, resilient, and sustainable over time. The present research weaves together resilience thinking and social-ecological transformation theory to study the alternative food network REKO in Sweden during the covid 19 pandemic. Through an interpretive logic of enquiry including a practitioner’s perspective, this study explores the effects of the pandemic on REKO and what role it played in the crisis response in the Swedish food system. Results show that parts of the network could adapt to the crisis, and by constituting an alternative for consumers and producers, it played a role in the national crisis response. Further, this study indicates an accelerated interaction between REKO and actors dominating the current food regime. However, the findings also reveal weaknesses of the network exposed by the pandemic. This study goes on to question whether a shortening of supply chains is the answer to the problems imposed by a global food system and suggests a repositioning of the long-short dichotomy. Lastly, this study conclu des with reflections on the need to move away from studying crises as singular events and instead suggests that future attempts to transform food systems should consider a crisis landscape.