Laura Cordery

Trinity Arts Centre, Gainsborough, Literacy Project 2021 Shooting Fish Theatre

Dir Emily Bignell

The Literacy Project has been running since 2013 and is unique as it see young people working from concept of a new writing script to opening a public performance while collaborating with and shadowing professional theatre makers.

Laura works with them regularly over each 6 month project duration to design and make the set and costumes for the piece of writing they developed with writer Neil Edwards

Artist-in-Residence at Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies Library and Hertford Library for the My Story programme.

Character Collage is a mixed media on card final work co-created with community of Hertford.

During this residency I drew together my experience in theatre and museums with my community engagement practice, to create experiences for a public audience to connect with history, place and objects within the archives. I aimed to support participants and audiences to shape their own narrative in response the material in the library, and connect in new ways.

I encountered curious characters from fairs, pageants and celebratory events within the archives and brought them together on a stage inspired by theatre model boxes and tunnel books. The frame of the work has made in responses printed initial plates, border and paragraph breaks from John Edwin Cussans grangerised copy of his own history of Hertfordshire.

Co-Lead Artist , Produced by Drawing Voices

Nottingham Contemporary, National Theatre exhibition space and Online

Pageant on Paper is a drawing, made by over 100 contributing hands, in pencil and ink, on a single piece of paper measuring 9.5 m x 1.5m. The drawing offers a way to discover great women past and present through the 331 portraits processing across the paper. The work was inspired by a little known, inspirational theatre maker and suffragette, Edith Craig and her staging of the suffrage play A Pageant of Great Women by Cicely Hamilton.

Katie and the Saints is a series of works that explore journey, pilgrimage, ritual and through the character of a nomadic women who travels with her Greek icons.

Trinity Arts Centre, Gainsborough, Literacy Project 2022 Shooting Fish Theatre

Dir Emily Bignell

The Literacy Project has been running since 2013 and is unique as it see young people working from concept of a new writing script to opening a public performance while collaborating with and shadowing professional theatre makers.

Laura works with them regularly over each 6 month project duration to design and make the set and costumes for the piece of writing they developed with writer Neil Edwards

Out of the Margins is a series of works inspired by a group of illustrated characters in the margins of the Hours of Jeanne de Navarre dating from the 1330s

Trinity Arts Centre, Gainsborough, Literacy Project 2019 Shooting Fish Theatre

Dir Emily Bignell

The Literacy Project has been running since 2013 and is unique as it see young people working from concept of a new writing script to opening a public performance while collaborating with and shadowing professional theatre makers.

Laura works with them regularly over each 6 month project duration to design and make the set and costumes for the piece of writing they developed with writer Neil Edwards

VISUAL ARTIST/DESIGNER on the RECConnecting Lincolnshire Project

Our Place by David Lane, Directed by Emily Bignell

TIE Tour

A collaboration between Lincoln Diocesan Board of Education, Shooting Fish Theatre, Taylor Made Arts and Cultural Solutions UK

The Reconnecting Lincolnshire project sought to address challenges faced by schools in Lincolnshire, one of the UK's least ethnically diverse counties, where 98.5% of the population identifies as 'white.' Local schools recognised the need to teach British values, diversity, religion, and citizenship in a culturally homogeneous environment.

The project focused on children in Years 6 and 7, using arts-based workshops and activities to explore identity and different cultures. Each school collaborated with a workshop leader from the project's creative team, including a visual artist, writer, director, filmmaker, and drama facilitators.

Laura worked in two schools, and used drawing exercises and visual mapping to spark conversations about identity, considering factors like family, place, and belongings. The workshops delved into the concept of belief and how to express intangible beliefs visually through symbols or behaviours. Over time, the students created ribbon sculptures as part of the set design for a play titled "Our Place," inspired by their discussions.

DESIGNER
Thérèse Raquin by Èmile Zola Adapted by Nona Shepphard

Music by Craig Adams Book & Lyrics by Nona Shepphard 

Produced by Theatre Bench

2014 Finborough Theatre & Park Theatre

Darren Bell Photography photographs no.1-7

Bettina John photographs 8-11

Wayne Eagles Video

DESIGNER

Fragments of Clay co-created by Peader Kirk and Ian Morgan

Directed by Peader Kirk 

Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, Black Box Festival and Canada Water Culture Space

2014

Photographs by Carmen So

Lighting concept by Nigel Edwards and AV design by Ken Mizutani.

DESIGNER

Everything Between Us by David Ireland

Directed by Neil Bull

Finborough Theatre

2017

DESIGNER
Hamlet by Shakespeare adapted and directed by Dominic Colenso
Royal Court Theatre Queen Mary 2, Cunard Cruise
2011
Photographs by Andy Grange

DESIGNER

Nine Days They Fell devised by MA Theatre Lab under the direction of  Ian Morgan

GBS Theatre

2013

First 4 photographs by Laura Cordery remainder by Linda Carter

DESIGNER

Laminated Written and directed by Darren Bolton

Shooting Fish Theatre  

Tristan Bates Theatre

2011

Photographs by Mike Messaro

DESIGNER
Goole's Friendly Giant 2012 and n adaptation of The Tempest 2013 and by & Shooting Fish Theatre Company for Goole bonfire night

West Park, Goole, Lincolnshire

DESIGNER
Seething Wells and the Defeat of King Cholera devised by Dumbshow in collaboration with Smoking Apples
The Coal House Seething Wells, Kingston
Photographs by Tangle Photography
Further photographs to view at Tangle Photography

2011

This was my first time working with a devising company.  The piece was site-specific at the coal house of Seething Wells in Kingston.  Seething Wells was a water filtration site that was part of pivotal research in proving the discovery of cholera as a water borne disease. Our research area was the 1854 outbreak of cholera originating at the Broad Street pump.  I offered a sculptural installation of tangled pipes and we developed group of storytellers: the scientists of serendipity to shape the narrative. For more information visit Dumbshow.

DESIGNER
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, adapted by Mike Poulton
Adapated & directed by Nona Shepphard
Royal Court Theatre Queen Mary 2 Cunard Cruise
2011
Photographs by Andy Grange

DESIGNER

Arabian Nights 

Adapated & directed by Nona Shepphard

Royal Court Theatre Queen Mary 2 Cunard Cruise

2013

During research into the origins and history of the Arabian Nights tales I became interested in the cross-fertilisation of cultures that is present within individual stories and their evolution as a collection over the centuries.  The resulting costume design and staging came from the desire to translate the fluidity of text and also to use a western and eastern hybrid in the costume design and the staging.  We selected three tales, Es-Sindibad, The Little Beggar and The Envious Sister.  We were interested in how Shahrazad’s stories, told from the bedroom setting, could expand out into the thrust space with rich and colourful fabrics filling the stage as the magic of her tales unravelled. 

Arabian Nights is an ongoing project with plans for further exploration into other tales using this design concept for 2014.

DESIGNER

Inigo written and directed by Jonathan Moore

White Bear Theatre, London

2015

Photographs by Laura Cordery

Series of works on paper inspired by objects from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge