For this week's Visiting Artist's Talk at the University of Leeds we welcome creative civic change practitioner, Katy Rubin.

Katy Rubin is a practitioner and designer of Legislative Theatre, an innovative, inclusive and joyful participatory democracy methodology. Legislative Theatre directly challenges injustices in governments and institutions, bringing residents and policymakers together into creative dialogue, and offering a rigorous testing platform for equitable, human-centred policy and practice.

Over the past decade, she has been developing, implementing and amplifying this methodology across the US and the UK; she currently works in partnership with city councils from London to Glasgow, national government, and community groups, on issues including housing and homelessness, food poverty and social welfare, healthcare, migration, and the climate crisis.

Her collaboration with Greater Manchester Combined Authority to co-create England’s first regional Homelessness Prevention Strategy was awarded the International Observatory of Participatory Democracy 2022 Award for Best Practice in Citizen Participation.

Katy is also a Senior Fellow with People Powered: Global Hub for Participatory Democracy; Associate with Shared Future CIC, and Senior Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at LSE.

Previously, Katy was founding executive director of Theatre of the Oppressed NYC. She studied with the creator of Theatre of the Oppressed, Augusto Boal, in Brazil, and holds a BFA from Boston University College of Fine Arts.

About the Visiting Artists’ Talks series

The Visiting Artist’s Talk (VAT) series hosts talks by an exciting range of arts practitioners from around the world every Monday afternoon 2–4pm during teaching weeks.

All of our talks are compulsory for our Fine Art students but are also open to anyone else who would like to join us.

Full details about this week's talk including venue information.