i will still be whole (when you rip me in half)
Conceptual Set and Costume Design
For Chapter Arts Centre Studio,
Black Box studio
By Ava Wong Davies
Director: George Nichols

My Concept
A young Chinese mother in London picks up her bag and walks out of the front door, abandoning her daughter and husband. As an adult, the daughter drifts through her life as a young queer woman, living with her father. Finally, decades later, mother and daughter reconnect.
Through the use of sliding fabric panels in my design, the characters pass each other by, but always have a barrier between them. The characters, Joy and EJ, reveal more about their relationship as the play progresses. The fluidity of my design allows for the audience to picture what the characters tell them about in their very descriptive monologues. Lots of different locations and past times are discussed, so, visually, the set needs to be adaptive and allow the mind to fill in the blanks. As one of the main themes is memory and recollection, the fabrics have an almost dream like effect.
Process
Design Concept Collage

Initial Response Boards

Windows and watching

People watching and wandering

Fabrics in the city
Set Design - Fabrics and Tapestries
Fabric as a literal interpretation of the title: ripped in half

Fabric as flesh






The text has numerous references to peaches, flesh and skin, and some violent imagery is described. The fabric is able to be interacted with in a way which conveys this.
Fabric as hiding and revelation


Experimentation with different opacities
Fabric patterns and tapestries



Exploring what different fabrics mean and represent
Set Design - Seating and traverse staging


As the studio space is very long and thin, I explored the idea of creating an abstracted street in the space. As the final scene, where EJ and Joy meet in a cafe, is a significant point in the story, I further explored the idea of cafe seating and people watching.


Cafe Scene Seating Concept
Design Development - Sketch model and sketches


Initial sketch model exploring how the fabrics could work

Initial sketch


Plan view of the space, mapping out movement of the fabric panels throughout the play
Diagram of sliding panel rails
White Card Model showing moments and the movements of fabric panels









Costume Design - Character Development

Reference Images - PXSSY PALACE London. A space celebrating black, indigenous and people of colour who are women, queer, intersex, trans or non-binary.

Reference Images - Shepherd's Bush

EJ

Joy
Final Costume Designs
