Resources

LADA provides free-to-access resources for artists, students and professionals. This includes research facilities, information, online materials and programming packages.

The Study Room

Our key resource which provides a research space for artists, academics, students and other curious folk. Containing over 8,000 items, including out-of-print books and rare documentation, our Study Room, in Bethnal Green, is the world’s largest collection of research materials on Live Art.

More about the Study Room

Search the Catalogue

The catalogue includes books, DVDs, magazines, journals and digital materials. A selection of these resources can be accessed online.

'Their open-access Study Room provides a gateway into a provocative, challenging yet wonder-full world'

The Independent’s 50 Best Museums and Galleries

Study Room Guides

As part of the continuous development of the Study Room we regularly commission a range of artists and thinkers to write personal Study Room Guides to help navigate users through this resource.

The idea is to enable Study Room users to experience the materials in a new way and highlight materials that they may not have otherwise come across.

View our Study Room Guides

Cover of the Are We There Yet Study Guide on a blue blackground

Are We There Yet? - a Study Room Guide on Live Art and Feminism

Key Links and Resources

We have assembled this selection of useful links and and pages for artists and researchers.

Downloads – free resources created by LADA

Email lists and Newsletters

Writing about Live Art

Links and Resources for Artists

Key Archives

Daniel Oliver, ‘Weird Seance', SPILL Festival of Performance 2014, photo by Guido Mencari

LADA Screens

An ongoing project offering free online screenings of seminal performance documentation, works to camera, short films/video and archival footage.

Our most recent LADA Screens was Crossed Paths: Scots Pine by Miranda Whall which premiered on LADA Screens from 4th July – 4th August 2022.

A woman crawling towards the camera on her hands and knees. One of her hands is in mid-air as she takes her next hand step. She is wearing black waterproofs, knee pads and black gloves. Her hood is up so we cannot see her face. She has GoPro cameras attached to her arms, wrists, hands, legs and there is one in her mouth. She is carrying a large black plant pot on her back, with a Scots Pine tree in it. She is crawling on a wide tarmac surface. There are 3 concrete underpasses behind her, and trees and shrubs growing on grassy banks on both sides of the tarmac pedestrian way. There are two public local busses approaching her on the road on the left side of the photo.

Miranda Whall, Crossed Paths - Scots Pine, November 2021. COP26, Glasgow. GoPro footage, still from film

Live Online

A series of channels where you can watch short videos and films selected from LADA’s Study Room or generated through our programmes and initiatives.

Artists Nando Messias and Franko B in conversation

Franko B and Nando Messias in conversation, Live Art Now, Queen Mary University of London, July 2019. Still from video, by Claire Nolan.

Listen Online

Listen Online is LADA’s platform for audio content, including recordings of artist talks as well as commissioned artworks by artists such as Marcia Farquhar, Jen Harvie, Taylan Halici and many others.

STACY MAKISHI, IMAGE BY HOLLY REVELL

Project Websites

A series of project specific LADA websites hosting curated content and documentation of the projects.

Edge of an Era: an archival project revisiting a specific series of seminal performance art events from the late 1980s.

PLAYING UP: A Live Art Game for Kids and Adults: an intergenerational artwork by Sibylle Peters

Performance Magazine Online: an online archive of and resources about, Performance Magazine (1979-1992)

Glimpses of Before:1970’s Performance Art in the UK: Study Room Guide by Helena Goldwater

Are We There Yet? A Study Room Guide on Live Art and Feminism

Live Art and Feminism in the UK: Curated by LADA in collaboration with Eleanor Roberts and the Google Cultural Institute, offering a snapshot of some of the key figures and issues of Live Art and Feminism in the UK since 1970

Documenting Intimacy: a research initiative piloted by Brian Lobel and Marisa Zanotti to explore documenting one-to-one performance from the perspective of artists.

NRLA 30: Highlights from the documentation of the 2010 edition of the NRLA Festival when artists from across the Festival’s 30-year history presented new work.

The illustrated artwork on the PLAYING UP Box.

PLAYING UP. Artwork by David Caines.

Collage of various Performance Magazine covers

Performance Magazine, Front Cover Collage

Collections

The Resources Catalogue includes a growing number of Collections of publications, DVDs and other ‘rare’ materials organised by themes, artists or projects, which have been assembled or acquired by the Agency, or generously donated by artists and colleagues.

View our collections

Bernsteins 'Taking Measurements of yourselves as Artists` FairlightGlen, Hastings 1972

Study Boxes

LADA is delighted to be able to offer UK and international promoters temporary installations of bespoke Study Boxes containing hand picked selections of DVDs, books and other materials from the LADA Study Room around specific themes.

Group of people sitting at the study cafe in Ipswich

SPILL Study Cafe, Ipswich 2012

Banner image credit: Performance Lecutre on Afrofuturism, Ivy Monteiro, Study Room resident, Live Art Development Agency 2019. Image by Ben Harris