Bio

David Shearing is Artistic Director of Variable Matter, leading the creation and international touring of large-scale public-space projects including World Kiosk, New Beginning (Silver Award, World Stage Design 2025), and new works currently in development across the UK, Europe, and the US.

He is a Director of Havering London, and co-author of A Good Life, Havering’s new £1.8m cultural strategy (2025–28), shaping major cultural programmes through deep community engagement and place-based design. David has raised significant investment across research, commissioning and public-realm projects through AHRC, Arts Council England, Without Walls, local authorities and international partners.

David is Senior Lecturer at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where he leads teaching in immersive and digital performance, design-led methodologies, and practice-research. He supervises multiple PhDs and has developed a new MA in cultural policy and leadership.

Project

Variable Matter will explore the next chapter for ‘New Beginning’, working in partnership with Festival Sismògraf and its communities, alongside other evolving projects developing its Deep Touring methodology, tackling the environmental challenges of contemporary theatre.

New Beginning is design-led, reimagining how theatre can respond to the climate crisis through collaboration and participation. Each version is remade locally – through language, materials and people - forming a dialogue between place and environment.

Instead of exporting a fixed show, Deep Touring embeds creative production in host communities. Local technicians and participants restory work in their own context, transferring skills and reducing environmental impact.