Jonathan Harden

Day 5: Exploring a place from the street view

Day 5: Exploring a place from the street view

Our fifth day featured a workshop with Jonathan Harden, a native of Belfast now living and working in London as an actor. I've known Jonathan for nine years now, as he's a frequent contributor to NYU Steinhardt's Ireland Study Away program in the summer. I asked him to do a version of a site-specific theatre workshop here in Bedford Square that he usually facilitates in Belfast. It's a way of discovering more about a place than simply what's presented as part of the "package." So often on these kinds of experiences, we can just get the tourist version of a city, whereas Jonathan believes (and I've seen that it's rightly so) that when we start to ask others about their experiences in a place, particularly if they live or work there, that we begin to see the place beyond what we get through a tourist's lens.