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• 2022 Lumen Prize Winner – 3D/Interactive Digital Art Award
• 2022 IndieCade Nominee – Live Action Category
• 2021 British Council International Collaboration Award (UK, Brazil, Colombia)
• 2020 Co-Creating Change Award for Garota Hacker (Battersea Arts Centre and CCC network)
• 2019 East London Innovator - HereEast, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
• 2019 Leader in Participatory Theatre & Performance Art - Greater London Enterprise Awards
• 2018 Developing Inclusive Creative Economies, awarded by British Council DICE Programme
• 2017 Best of 2016 - Latin Culture Social Congress, Rio de Janeiro
• 2016 Arts Council ELEVATE Programme - Creative Case for Diversity
• 2014 THE SPACE Digital Theatre Prize Finalist
• 2014 State of Rio de Janeiro Award for Socially Engaged Art
• 2011 Herald Angel Prize for Hotel Medea, Edinburgh Festival
• 2011 Prix Ars Eletronica (Austria) - Honorary Mention for category: Hybrid Art
• 2010 Total Theatre Awards – Finalist category: Innovation
• 2010 Oxford Samuel Beckett Trust Foundation Finalist

• Horizon Fellow at Concordia University, Montréal (2022)
• External Examiner MA Virtual Reality at UWE (2019-22)
• Fellow of Rose Bruford College (awarded 2019)
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA)
• Member of International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR)
• Member of Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA)

Hacking the familiar | Jorge Lopes Ramos | TEDxUniversityofGreenwich

From making all the pay-phones in the UK ring at the same time in response to suicide rates, to creating a dating agency using binaural sound, Brazilian-born Jorge Lopes Ramos reflects on how his inferiority complex and his very long name have impacted on his way of creating interactive theatre and games. During this talk, he invites his audience to create something new, together - in less than 1 minute (if you watch until the end).

TEDx video:

Over the past two decades, Jorge's research has addressed a fast growing, yet significantly unresearched area of investigation: immersive, participatory and interactive theatre. His research contributions have helped advance the subject area, both nationally and internationally, through an extensive record of original, significant and rigorous research through publications in book chapters, research reports, conference papers and PAR outputs. Over the past 15 years, Jorge's practice-as-research outputs have taken the form of performances and productions, digital work, public installations and exhibitions in venues, conferences and festivals.

For more from Jorge Lopes Ramos and his work with Persis Jadé Maravala, visit ZU-UK:

Research/Scholarly interests

Jorge's research career started twenty ago in Brazil, after completing an intensive course with Augusto Boal on the key principles of Theatre of The Oppressed. Before meeting Boal and understanding the Forum Theatre methodology, he had not realised that extraordinary art and activism were not mutually exclusive and could be such powerful allies for personal growth and social change. Until that moment, he had not seen a place for himself in the world of art or indeed in academia. Jorge also understood that games and theatre were intrinsically connected, and that relationship never left his practice.

Jorge was born at the end of the Brazilian dictatorship and raised within Borel (one of Rio de Janeiro's largest favelas) to a Polish and Romanian immigrant family. His grandfather was a watchmaker and his grandmother a street fruit seller in Rio. His mother was the first person in her family to get a University degree, and his late father dedicated his life to his two passions: art and politics, being one of the founders of Brazil's Workers Party in the early 80's. As a working-class 18-year-old student in Rio de Janeiro, what eventually brought him to the UK was a deep sense of curiosity about another cultural context, coupled with a desire to understand his own culture from the outside. As a result, his research career was shaped through a rich set of international, multi-cultural and cross-disciplinary relationships and driven by this newfound commitment to personal growth and development. This personal experience as an outsider has deeply informed him about the professional practice and research through MPhil and PhD (available below), and always defines why he makes the work he does and who he makes it for.

The overlap between immersive theatre, game-design and interactive technology has never been so relevant. This presents us with new challenges - from the sustainability of the professional practice to the ethics of audience participation. Therefore, since 2012 as a result of his work with Hotel Medea (2006-12), Jorge has led on a series of research projects to develop the scalability of intimate performance whilst retaining the quality and care in the live experience (2014-19) in over 5 conference, labs and symposia.

As well as his research practice, Jorge is committed to increasing access to postgraduate opportunities through a new practice-based VC Scholarship dedicated to researchers who are d/Deaf, Disabled and/or Neurodivergent.

PhD available to download:

Ramos, J. 2015. (Re-) Constructing the Actor-Audience Relationship in Immersive Theatre Practice. PhD Thesis University of East London Arts and Digital Industries

Download link:

Funded Research Projects

Body Brain Bingo (2017-18) Funded by: Welcome Trust  

Playing with Intimacy & Intensity Network (2019-20) Funded by: AHRC

Urban Heat – Festivals in Transition (2015-18)  Funded by: Creative Europe

Garota  Hacker (2019-20) Key Themes: Sustainable Fashion; Income Generation; Interactive  Performance; Technology; Games. Funded by: British Council DICE Programme and   Battersea Arts Centre's Co-Creating Change Network Partners:  (London),  Lá Da Favelinha (Belo Horizonte), Creative Youth Network (Bristol), Centro  Popular de Conspiração Gargarullo (Rio de Janeiro) and others.

UK  press:

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