The Australian opera company Pinchgut faces the challenge of an aging audience and limited engagement with younger and more diverse communities. This project responds by reimagining the “chair” not as a fixed theatre seat but as an adaptable, participatory platform that invites audiences to co-create their own experience. By shifting seating from passive observation to active arrangement, the installation encourages new forms of interaction, shared agency, and collective presence. The seating becomes a catalyst for dialogue, inviting people to negotiate space, encounter difference, and build temporary communities. Through this reconfigured environment, opera is repositioned as a socially engaged, contemporary cultural practice.
Visual Communication & Graphic Systems
2025
Client Pinchgut Opera
Award GDC Award 2025
Design Strategy
Inspired by the polyphonic structure of Baroque opera, this design treats each seat as a distinct “voice” in a spatial dialogue. Echoing Baroque melodies where one phrase is voiced and another answers in return. The typography and chair graphics evoke a visual call and response. Individually placed yet rhythmically intertwined, they create a layered, conversational harmony across the space.
A shared pile. A held story. A shifting system. A lived corner.
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