Led by M. Kazubowski-Houston (PI, York University) and M. Sztandara (Jagiellonian University), Performing Eco-Grief is a comparative research-creation project exploring how marginalized youth (racialized, underserviced, disabled, and queer youth) in Canada and Poland express and mobilize ecological grief (eco-grief) through site-specific performance ethnography. As climate disasters intensify, young people are increasingly grappling with environmental loss, yet their emotional responses remain underrepresented in research and policy. Existing studies of eco-grief often overlook its embodied, collective, and culturally specific dimensions. Working with youth aged 13–25, our project investigates how ecological grief is shaped by different environmental, political, and cultural contexts and how performance can transform grief into collective social and political action.

In collaboration with four youth-focused theatres—Theatre Direct (Toronto), Green Kids (Winnipeg), Teatr Ludowy (Kraków), and Wrocław Puppet Theatre—we are developing four youth-led, site-specific performances, supported by interviews, ethnographic research, and participant observation. The project also includes ethnographic short films, scholarly publications, an educational toolkit, and a bilingual digital archive.

By bringing performance ethnography into climate grief research, the project seeks to shift understandings of ecological mourning from a private psychological experience to a collective, political, and potentially transformative act. At its heart, the project asks how performance can help young people turn ecological grief into action, build resilience, and imagine more just and livable futures.

Supported by an Insight Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.