Our upcoming project: Gib es weiter/ Pass it on.

If you live in Schillerkiez, Neukölln and are interested in being a part of a neighbourhood Polaroid portrait project please get in touch.

We are supported by Schillerkiez Quartiers Management.

Gib es weiter

Brisbane City Hall was turning 80 but the building was closed due to renovation. I was commissioned to produce a celebratory birthday piece; a large 80 for the occasion. My idea was to allow the public to engage with some of the beautiful features of the building hidden within while undergoing restoration work. With a very short lead time and with some specialist skills needing to be learned very quickly, I worked night and day to get her finished! The number is made up of casts of the inside of the building - created using a silicon molding process. These pieces were filled with poured hydrostone and then assembled on plywood backing panels to make the final work which was then painted.
As part of the project Tian and I hosted a workshop in the city on April 8. We demonstrated the molding process, allowing kids to make their own imprints with play dough. Using crayons we also made rubbings off the artwork for the public to take home their own piece of City Hall.

Producer: Tian Zhang
Supported by: Brisbane City Council

Old Dear: Brisbane City Hall turns 80

Design of The Ghan festival float from concept by Children's Workshop Coordinator, Amanda King.
The work was carried out over four days by a group of cross disciplinary artists and designers. It involved the construction of a 10m x 2m festival train float using light weight but heavy duty materials. Three arts workshops were held to decorate the float and actively engage children in the process.

WOMAD: the Ghan

Originally I was engaged to design a solution to a 'car puzzle' using a piano and parts of a car. This problem evolved with the production to finally include the bare essentials: seats (made from decomissioned theater chairs) and lights. I also installed the set and shattered screen.

The character of Pierrot goes back to 16th century commedia dell’arte. In the course of time Pierrot first changed from an insensible rogue to an ingenious, but tormented figure that is buried in its bizarre inner world, then to a daydreaming character, prone to boredom and violence, effeminate, in love and insane. In 1911 the actress Albertine Zehme asked the composer Arnold Schönberg to set to music part of the Pierrot Lunaire-poems by the Belgian Albert Giraud: For five musicians and a female singer Schönberg arranged 21 of the approximately 50 poems to become one of his ground-breaking works for music theatre.
The concept for the production by Bruce LaBruce (with Susanne Sachsse as Pierrot) is grounded in Schönberg’s understanding of cabaret like Grand Guignol and Chat Noir in Paris. The latter’s vision of Pierrot Lunaire took him to a dreamworld, full of “decadent longing, guilt, rapture and fear”, endowed with horror scenarios and the ironical-satiric humour of Grand Guignol.

“While I listened to the music of Arnold Schönberg I tried to associate a concept that would match well with the mood of his atonal music on the one hand, and on the other hand could be combined with the poems by Albert Giraud in a more contemporary context. From the jungle of thoughts of my unconscious rose a story that is supposed to have happened decades ago in Toronto, and that is both odd and universal (the Oedipus- and castration-complex are obvious). This story can even stand its ground next to the tragedies of the old Greeks or those of Shakespeare.

A young girl that regularly dresses as a boy (just think of ‘As you like it’ or ‘The Merchant of Venice’) falls in love and seduces a young girl that has no clue that her lover has the same sex. When the girl introduces ‘her boyfriend’ to her father he becomes skeptical and unmasks the fraud. Even though, strangely, the feelings of the girl persist without shifting, the father does not allow them to ever see the other again. Furious and delusional the ‘boy’ develops an adventurous plan to prove his true ‘masculinity’ to the father of his lover.” (Bruce LaBruce)

In co-production with HAU, sponsored with funds from the Hauptstadtkulturfonds

Directed by Bruce la Bruce
Artistic direction and Set Design: Item idem
Costume Design : Zaldy

Pierrot Lunaire

Site design and site specific artwork was produced specially for the 2high Festival  held at Brisbane Powerhouse. There was also collaboration within a team to develop the vision, brief the graphic designer and create a strong direction and theme for the 2009 event. The event presented by Backbone Youth Arts was in it's 16th year.

2high is a youth arts festival run by creative producers under 26 years old. The Engagement coordinator role was in its' first year, allowing the freedom to shape the duties and outcomes to my interests, creating a precedent for the 2010 position. My aim was to make the festival feel unified and to take over Brisbane Powerhouse visually. The spaces for each department (music, exhibitions and performance) needed to be easily identified and addressing the scale of the venue with a small budget was a challenge.

An indoor and outdoor 'set' was designed and constructed, turning Brisbane Powerhouse into a stage for the happenings of the festival. I worked closely with the graphic designer Trent Barton (Zero Hour), also appointed as my mentor. Further sponsorship was sought from building material and specialist suppliers, using their donations to make custom lighting, floor mats, sets, site specific sculptures and branding artwork based on graphic forms created by Trent. Collaboratively with Tian Zhang an event called Fast Art was developed; a speed networking activity based on speed dating; designed to foster cross disciplinary creative relationships. 

Photography by Yuki Nakano

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Elise Terranova