Porous Borders – beyond the separate disciplines of performance design

ABSTRACT

The PQ’s every edition strives to find new ways to reflect and experiment with the traditional, as well as emerging disciplines of performance design.  The 14^th edition curatorial team had over a year to reflect and think about what the most interesting and challenging moments stemming from live, immersive exhibition formats were. We are in an era where new media and science professions are becoming an important part of performance design creative work. Many traditional production models are expanding and changing to make space for professionals bringing in new skills and new approaches. 

PQ 2019 mainly put emphasis on teamwork and featured design collectives, studios, theatre and dance companies. The theme of Porous Borders encouraged projects where the line between design professions was blurry or non-existent and the curatorial process supported projects where the audience was immersed in scenography rather than presented with samples of costume design, set design, lighting and sound. Costume design was part of every project and all exhibition sections. This effort resulted in many examples where the costume can also be seen as a sound device, set, lighting source, singular object or a sculpture. Some projects featured costumes made for extreme use or for the disruption of various public spaces.

As the creative process and the profession of costume design is expanding, so should the ways to present it to both professional and non-professional audiences. This presentation also seeks to open a discussion, where wider professional and theoretical bases can help through feedback and shape new curatorial methods that are taking the borderless collaborative models, which expand new costume design methods into account. 

BIOGRAPHY

Markéta Fantová is a scenic, lighting and costume designer for theatre, dance, and performance art. She has worked in theatres, galleries and visually inspiring sites in both the United States and Europe. Her costume and set designs were included in the USITT-USA PQ National Exhibit (2007) and World Stage Design Exhibit in Seoul, South Korea (2009). She is currently living in Prague, Czech Republic, where she is holding the position of Artistic Director of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space.