ARTISTS Dorita Hannah, Sven Mehzoud, Lee Gibson

For Wellington theatre designers Dorita Hannah, Sven Mehzoud, and Lee Gibson, stage design is more than just providing a backdrop for a performance. They want to ‘challenge, disrupt and eliminate the borders that traditionally exist in theatre, so new relationships could be explored between the body and the built, between the viewer and the viewed, between the designer and the director’. In their installation, a ramp rises above the gallery floor. It’s graduated, to entice us into the space. Once we step onto this raised platform, we become incorporated as both viewer and viewed,  navigating the space in the place of the absent performer. Text runs around the walls, suggesting an unfolding narrative, further drawing us in.