Unsettled Assemblies: performance space, infrastructure and architecture at PQ 2023

The Performance Space Exhibition at the 2023 Prague Quadrennial (PQ)–titled ‘Acts of Assembly’–explored how theatres and performance spaces operate as sites of assembly and spaces for community. It asked: How do they create connections? How do they facilitate encounters? How do they function as sites for social action and the making of culture? Focussing on the dynamics of different acts of assembly, and positing performance itself as an assemblage, the exhibition explored the productive continuities and antagonisms between more traditional theatre architectures and the broader emergent qualities of performance spaces. This essay reflects on how the exhibition expressed a vision of performance spaces as a vital social infrastructure. It suggests the concept of social infrastructure as a useful analytic for examining how performance spaces support and sustain people and practices. The essay also reflects on the unsettled positioning of theatre architecture and performance space within PQ more generally.