Hulkko & Laakkonen: Actor education, object animation and care

This article discusses how vocational actor training could be challenged and developed through materially oriented object theatre to address questions of well-being. Institutional actor training and institutional care are linked by means of artistic research experiments on object theatre. The aim is to extend the scope of actor training beyond the humanistic sphere inherent in acting and theatre by means of providing the pedagogy of acting with alternative notions of agency and materiality. It suggests a conceptualisation of well-being which emphasises its existential, relational and artistic quality.