In the lead up to World Stage Design 2025, ScenoLab Australia is holding several virtual talks focused on this global celebration of performance design, architecture and technology.

Join designers Meg Rollandi, Roger Alsop and Imogen Ross as they discuss the exhibitions, workshops and activities they are taking to World Stage Design 2025!

Hear from Meg Rollandi all about Gravity & Grace, a finalist in the WSD Professional Exhibition ‘Performance Design’ category, while Roger Alsop discusses his workshop Sound as Scene - Sustainably Creating Place and Emotion, and Imogen Ross outlines her curation process for the Green Conversation Cafe.

More on our speakers activities here!

Meg Rollandi - Finalist in Performance Design category for Gravity & Grace by Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken adapted from the book Aliens and anorexia by Chris Kraus

Meg Rollandi performance designer and maker based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa. She is Senior Lecturer and Spatial Design Subject Lead at Toi Rauwhārangi, Massey University. Her creative practice engages interdisciplinary and collaborative, design-led devising processes and intermedial performance. Meg’s work has toured extensively internationally and across New Zealand. Meg curated the NZ Countries and Regions exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial 2023. Recent highlights include performance design for Gravity & Grace (ANZFA and AAF 2024) awarded Gold at the Designer’s Institute NZ Best Awards, set designer and production of the year at the Wellington Theatre Awards 2024, Working on My Night Moves (Total Theatre Award, Edinburgh Fringe 2019), London premiere at The Yard’s Now 20 Festival and Rising Melbourne 2022.

Gravity & Grace is a large-scale stage adaptation of feminist author Chris Kraus’ novel Aliens & Anorexia. Brimming with intellect, humour and rich visuals, the theatre show follows Kraus through the production of an ill-fated film in Auckland in the 90s, her bold move to punk New York in the 70s, and to a disastrous appearance at a Berlin film market. Along the way, she has encounters with some of the greatest artists and philosophers of the 20th century. The large-scale work premiered in Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts and Auckland Arts Festival in March 2024, to critical and commercial acclaim.

Featuring a multi-level stage, four onstage cameras operated by the performers, numerous projection surfaces and a cast of five, Gravity & Grace was created to provide theatre audiences in Aotearoa with an exceptionally high-standard, large-scale storytelling event with rich multimedia elements, exploring one woman’s experience of crushing failure.

The script, staging and video design in Gravity & Grace were meticulously created in an iterative and highly collaborative process across all creative departments over a four period period of workshopping and development to ensure storytelling and design integration. As expressed in the ‘Architecture Now’ article Theatre Architecture as Enduring Event, “[a]lthough focusing on the portrayal of spectacular creative failure, [Gravity & Grace] was, in fact, a masterpiece of contemporary intermedial design: seamlessly integrating performing bodies with setting, sound, lighting and moving image; including live camera feed overlaid from varying angles.”

This focus on integration created a live event that was emotionally expressive, technically complex, visually layered, and beautiful. Following well attended seasons in Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Whanganui a Tara and critical acclaim, the show is currently being prepared for touring to international arts festivals.

Roger Alsop - Creator/facilitator of the Workshop Sound as Scene - Sustainably Creating Place and Emotion

Roger Alsop, a multidisciplinary artist and curator, creates collaborative artworks in theatre, galleries, and music; exploring interactions of text, sound, and visual imagery through the arts. He has taught at Melbourne University for over 20 years and lectured at Nicola Sala Conservatorium, Greenwich, Edinburgh, Zagreb, and Belgrade Universities. His writing is internationally published. His works have been exhibited at venues including the Prague Quadrennial, Melbourne Festival, Theatrelab (NYC), and Kaunas Picture Gallery.

Imogen Ross - Curator of the Green Conversation Cafe

Imogen Ross is a theatre designer of 30 years, with a passion for ecoscenography and new work. She trained at WAAPA, started her early career in Melbourne on musicals, later moving to Sydney, where she was one of the founding Tamara Rock Surfers at the Old Fitzroy Theatre. She and Kristen Anderson co wrote Performance Design in Australiaback in 2000, the first book to examine the creative process of Australian designers in real time, and has gone on to develop the APDGreen Conversations for the Australian Production Design Guild, where she continues to interview designers about their practices.. Imogen is working at NIDA as their Sustainability Manager, and concurrently studying for her Honours in Visual design at Griffith University in QLD.

As part of the World Stage Design program, Imogen is hosting the Green Conversation Cafe over 4 nights in Sharjah. She is joined at the cafe by fellow researcher, Phd candidate Paula Martins. Together they plan to hold open ended conversations and discussions with variety of international designers, academics and architects about the impact of climate change on their myriad practices.

Who is ScenoLab Australia?

ScenoLab Australia is a national collaborative network for researchers and educators in performance design, architecture, interior and spatial design, and performance technologies. We are Australia’s National OISTAT Centre. Our aim is to bring together the growing body of Australian researchers specialising in scenography and performance design. Our goal is to foster the exchange of knowledge and best practices in our field. Our vision is to create a vibrant and inclusive community of practitioners and scholars dedicated to advancing performance production, design, and architecture in Australia.

Read more about us here - https://scenolab.com.au/about-scenolab-australia