Ungovernable (US/SE)
Linnaeus Residency Programme, August 2025 - November 2027
UNGOVERNABLE is created by Caitlin Nasema Cassidy and Helene Larsson Pousette in collaboration with dramaturg Robert Duffley. This project, which weaves archival investigation with autobiographical performance and strategies for collective action, is supported by Linnaeus Residency Program, Linnaeus University. Developed through residencies in Sweden and the US in 2025 and 2026, UNGOVERNABLE will tour internationally in 2027.
C: We should make a list of our demands, our ungovernable fantasies. One: No man-made borders. Freedom. Like a wild horse, an undammed river.
H: In my ungovernable fantasy, I would eat popcorn for breakfast and live without fear. Not looking over my shoulder. And should we say something about the government?
C: YES.
H: I have trust in government. In the state system. Here in Sweden, the rule of law is like a box that makes us free.
C: …!
H: You said something over the summer. Are you a—
C: A what?
H: An anarchist?
Part intergenerational debate, part resistance training, and part acting class, UNGOVERNABLE is a participatory performance about how to act in a time of collapse. American artist Caitlin Nasema Cassidy and former Swedish diplomat Helene Larsson Pousette summon a lineage of democratic dissenters and environmental actors to remember and rehearse our wild futures.
Within the Linnaeus Residency Programme, Ungovernable collaborates with Regionteatern Blekinge Kronoberg and Elin Wägners Lilla Björka. During the residency, Ungovernable’s artists engage with researchers, the general public, and fellow artists in a process of mutual knowledge exchange. The work is supported by the Erasmus+ project Rock Your Research (RYR), which aims to strengthen higher education institutions as nodes for collaboration, knowledge exchange, and civic engagement.
Bio
UNGOVERNABLE is a collaboration between Swedish and American artists and academic/cultural institutions. The project is co-created by New York-based theater artists Caitlin Nasema Cassidy and Robert Duffley alongside Helene Larsson Pousette, who served as Counsellor for Cultural Affairs at Sweden’s embassies in Washington, DC and Serbia. They collaborated previously on We Hear You—A Climate Archive, a global storytelling project exploring youth perspectives on the climate emergency, with performances at the Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden (77 meddelanden till framtiden), the Kennedy Center, and the Hirshhorn Museum, as well as United Nations conferences COP27 (Egypt), COP28 (UAE), and Stockholm+50. Published at aclimatearchive.com, the stories are entering the permanent collection of Stockholms Stadsarkivet in 2025.
Caitlin Nasema Cassidy
(she/they) is an award-winning actor, director, and producer. Caitlin generates visceral and poetic performance that celebrates the natural world and uplifts underrepresented SWANA narratives. Her practice is rooted in joy, embodied research, and (com) post-activism. She has toured nationally and internationally from Shakespeare’s Globe to the Spoleto Festival to The New York Times Climate Forward stage at COP. Recent work includes: SHOW/BOAT: A RIVER at NYU Skirball with Under the Radar Festival, THE VAGRANT TRILOGY at The Public Theater, FERRY TALES at the Kennedy Center, and WE HEAR YOU—A CLIMATE ARCHIVE with The Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden, The Earth Commons, The Lab for Global Performance and Politics, and The Swedish Embassy in Washington, DC. Caitlin is a Grist 50 Fixer and inaugural Artist-in-Residence at The Earth Commons—Georgetown University’s Institute for the Environment and Sustainability. The daughter of a Syrian-Lebanese mother and Northern Irish father, Caitlin was raised between Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, and Massachusetts. Today she makes her home in NYC.
CaitlinNasemaCassidy.com / @CaitlinNasemaCassidy
Helene Larsson Pousette
(she/her) is a diplomat, curator, senior facilitator, writer, and the former Counsellor for Cultural Affairs at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, DC (USA) and at the Embassy of Sweden in Serbia. In these positions, she took the initiative for long-term projects such as Creative Mentorship Serbia and WE HEAR YOU—A CLIMATE ARCHIVE with The Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden, The Earth Commons, The Lab for Global Performance and Politics, and The Swedish Embassy in Washington, DC. She has worked at the Swedish Exhibition Agency, Swedish History Museum, and Swedish Institute, curating interdisciplinary programs and exhibitions that unite heritage, history, and contemporary art. As co-founder of the Stockholm Museum of Women’s History, she initiated ARKIVISM, a handbook and method on how to navigate archives and archive yourself, currently being implemented by Association of Swedish Teachers and Researchers in America. She has been a member of the Swedish National Heritage Board, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, and, since 2024, she has been a member of Lund University's external Cultural Advisory Board. In 2021, she published her book on curating and exhibition processes: Att veckla ut historien. Anteckningar från en utställningsprocess (Nätverkstan).
Robert Duffley
(he/him) is a New York-based dramaturg, editor, and teacher with a particular focus on interdisciplinary, international, and climate performance. From 2013 to 2023, Robert served at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University (most recently as Editor & Associate Dramaturg), supporting the development of works by artists including Anna Deavere Smith, Claudia Rankine, and V (formerly Eve Ensler) while collaborating with faculty to launch new, interdisciplinary coursework. Other recent/upcoming theater productions include LubDub Theatre Co’s The Magic Bullet (Arab American National Museum, Noor Theatre), Miranda Rose Hall’s A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction (UK, EU tours, commissioned and developed by LubDub Theatre Co), Ferry Tales (Kennedy Center), 1776 (A.R.T., Broadway, First National Tour), Claudia Rankine’s HELP (The Shed), and We Hear You—A Climate Archive (with Dramaten, Georgetown’s Lab for Global Performance & Politics, the Georgetown Earth Commons, and the Embassy of Sweden in the US). Teaching: Georgetown University, Harvard University, Emerson College. Robert is the Founding Dramaturg of LubDub Theatre Co.
robertduffley.com.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.