HENRIKE IGLESIAS is a theatre collective based in Berlin and Basel that has been working together since 2012. Henrike's permanent team consists of Leo G. Alonso, Malu Peeters, Marielle Schavan and Sophia Schroth. They see phenomena of popular culture and mass media as a mirror of social conditions and grievances and have made it their mission to examine them from a feminist perspective. In their work, they like to use technical means and devices in a narrative, interactive and poetic way and are interested in the extent to which they influence our everyday coexistence.
In 2019 and 2020, Henrike Iglesias was part of a double bill partnership with the Münchner Kammerspiele and the junges theater basel. This resulted in FRESSEN (2019), their manifesto against body shaming and perhaps the only cooking show in which people don’t cook but only eat, and in the performance UNTITLED [2020] for young audiences, in which six young people from Basel explore their own political activism on stage.
In LIARS, HENRIKE IGLESIAS, OLIVIA HYUNSIN KIM and OLYMPIA BUKKAKIS explore cases of patriarchal violence and their amplification on social media. In a narrative, immersive installation, the audience moves through a performative social media feed.
The starting point is the trial between American actor Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard – one of many examples that mark a social backlash within discourses on sexualised and patriarchal violence since #MeToo. Why are women and queers who speak out about patriarchal violence still (or once again) so strongly distrusted? How does the myth of the ‘(im)perfect victim’ play into this? How are social media tools being used specifically to reinforce misogynistic and queerphobic tendencies? What role do we play as an audience? And what strategies and feminist visions help us to fight back and remain hopeful?
Concept, performance: Olympia Bukkakis, Olivia Hyunsin Kim, Marielle Schavan, Sophia Schroth
Concept, spatial design, video: Leo G. Alonso
Concept, sound design, composition: Malu Peeters
Costume design: Alexis Mersmann, Anne Marina Fidler
Dramaturgy, outside eye: María F. Giacaman Hasbún
Spatial design, video: Valentina Primavera, Anahí Pérez
Graphic design, typography and merch design: Aditi Kapur
Production management: ehrliche arbeit (DE), Maxine Devaud / oh la la – performing arts production (CH)
Press and public relations: Franziska Janke
LIARS is a performance by HENRIKE IGLESIAS, Olivia Hyunsin Kim and Olympia Bukkakis that explores patriarchal violence, online misogyny and the ways social media shapes whose stories we choose to believe.
Taking cues from the themes of the performance and its stage design, I developed the visual direction for their merchandise to be sold at the premieres of the show (the funds raised through the merch was donated). The rough, layered textures of rocks and the sculptural quality of the stage elements, for example, the handmade rugs; became an important starting point, informing the visual language across the designs.
I worked across art direction, typography and colour, bringing these elements together to create a visual identity that could move between the performance and the objects themselves. The collection includes graphic T-shirts, socks and custom matchboxes, each translating a part of the project's visual world into something tangible abd cohesive.
The result is a collection that sits somewhere between theatre merchandise and wearable graphic design – a little playful, a little confrontational, contemporary, rugged yet still soft; and rooted in the atmosphere of LIARS.
The photoshoot features Shivani Sawant and Latika Nehra. Styling, photography art direction by me (Aditi Kapur)
BTS
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