Academic research

My research is primarily focused on labour, public policy, and the arts. Drawing upon a range of methodologies from sociology, history, theatre and performance studies, and political economy, my current research investigates the relationship between Australian artists and the federal government, and the role of cultural policy in determining the industrial relations of the subsidised arts sector. I am particularly interested in the impact of neoliberalism on arts labour, and am committed to developing alternative funding frameworks that help to safeguard the agency of Australian artists. This commitment is reflected in my recent work as co-editor of a special edition of Performance Paradigm, ‘The Art of Subsidy / The Subsidy of Art’ (2023), to which I contributed an historical analysis of neoliberalism and arts policy in my article, ‘Cultural Policy and the Integral State’ (2023).

My areas of expertise include:

  • Australian theatre and cultural history, in particular the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s

  • Cultural policy and arts funding

  • ‘Creative industries’ (history, policy, discourse, politics)

  • Class analysis and social critical theory

  • Socially-engaged theatre and performance

  • Australian labour and political history

Selected publications and talks

  • 2025

    [forthcoming] Nantsou, I. (2025). Disorganised Labour: Tracing trade union decline through the stories of the Melbourne Workers’ Theatre 1987-1992. Australasian Drama Studies, 86.

    2024

    [forthcoming] Nantsou, I. (2024). Community Theatre in the Climate of Fear. Performance Paradigm, 19.

    2023

    Nantsou, I. (2023). Cultural Policy and the Integral State: A Gramscian Analysis of Arts Funding. Performance Paradigm, 18, 41-59.

    Hay, C., Nantsou, I., Ashford, L. (2023). Editorial: The Art of Subsidy / The Subsidy of Art. Performance Paradigm, 18.

  • 2023

    Hay, C., Nantsou, I., Ashford, L. (2023). The Art of Subsidy / The Subsidy of Art. Performance Paradigm, 18.

  • 2024

    ‘Bringing ‘class’ into Performance Studies’
    “Doing and Undoing”, Australasian Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies Association interim conference, Griffith University Queensland (11-13 December)

    ‘Financial data for theatre history: insights from the Melbourne Workers’ Theatre archives’
    “Doing and Undoing”, Australasian Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies Association interim conference, Griffith University Queensland (11-13 December)

    2023

    ''It’s Time’ for a reappraisal: 50 years since Whitlam’s arts reforms.'
    “Archives, Artists, and Absences”, Australasian Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies Association Annual conference, Flinders University Adelaide (1-4 December).

    'Cultural Policy and the Integral State: A Gramscian Analysis of Arts Funding.'
    Theatre and Performance Studies Research Seminar, University of Sydney.

    2022

    'Myth-busting the Whitlam cultural revolution'.
    Theatre and Performance Studies Research Seminar, University of Sydney.

    2021

    'An introduction to Art and Working Life'.
    Theatre and Performance Studies Research Seminar, University of Sydney.

    2020

    'The Essentials—A Cautionary Tale'.
    Theatre and Performance Studies Research Seminar, University of Sydney.

    'Toward a new chapter of radical Australian theatre'.
    Theatre and Performance Studies Research Seminar, University of Sydney.

  • 2024

    Guest Lecture: "Money" for second year Contexts in Performance students.
    National Institute of Dramatic Arts, Sydney.

    2023

    Presented on “‘Hir’ and the field of Australian mainstage theatre”.
    Hunt-Simes Sexuality Studies Seminar (Gender Studies), University of Sydney. Invited by SSSHARC fellow Professor Shane Vogel (Yale) to present research from my Honours dissertation (University Medal, 2017).

    2022

    Respondent on panel for launch of “Arts, Culture, and Country” by Jo Caust, alongside panellists Dominic Mercer (Belvoir St Theatre), Liza-Mare Syron (UNSW, Moogahlin Performing Arts), and Augusta Supple (cultural leader).
    Currency House, New Platform Papers Launch, University of Sydney.

    2021

    Convenor: “Research Methodologies” Special Edition Seminar.
    Theatre and Performance Studies’ Research Seminar, University of Sydney.

  • The Subsidy Question: Community Theatre and the Integral State (2024)

    This thesis investigates how historic changes in capitalist strategies of accumulation have become manifest in Australia’s provisions for cultural subsidy. It investigates the historical conditions from which Australian neoliberalism emerged and aligns this with the history of federal arts subsidy, with a focus on the relationship between the state, community arts, and cultural policy in Australia during the period 1972 to 1997. The methodology is historical materialism, the analysis guided by Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony which understands the state as “integral” to capitalism.

    The first half of this thesis is an historical analysis tracing the emergence of federal arts subsidy from its origins as a Keynesian-led postwar reconstruction policy; through its short-lived activation by the Whitlam government; to its significant destabilisation in the face of economic crisis; and investigates how these events manifest in Australia’s federal community arts program.

    The second half of the thesis examines how changing strategies of accumulation have been reflected in community arts funding, policies, and practice. This is explored through four case studies: Art and Working Life (1982-c1995), a joint funding program from the Australia Council and the Australian Council of Trade Unions targeting projects with a connection to labour culture; the Melbourne Workers’ Theatre (1987-2012), the only Australian theatre company founded with the mission to work exclusively with the labour movement; Creative Nation (1994), Australia's first federal cultural policy that entrenched an economic rationalist ‘creative industries’ paradigm into future policymaking; and The Essentials (1997), a community theatre production written with emergency services and domestic violence support workers about their lived experience of a statewide restructure under former Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett.

    This thesis finds that the Keynesian origins of arts subsidy maintain an irreconcilable tension with the “creative industries framework” now securely entrenched in Australian cultural policy, and that these cyclical problems are the result of a structural antagonism between a sector that relies on public funding and the imperatives of the neoliberal state.