Lauren Brincat & Leah Giblin Set & Costume Designers

Lauren Brincat is an artist who works across diverse media from video and performance to sculpture and installation. Interested in sound sculptures and performance instruments, her work explores non-verbal modes of expression through narrative or ideas. By distancing us from a logical, direct, language-based understanding, her work opens doors to multiple perspectives and interpretations.

Her recent work includes sculptural forms that can be activated by participants. In 2022, Lauren showcased Tutti Presto fff at the Sydney Opera House for Vivid Sydney, collaborating with Leah Giblin and Alyx Dennison, as well as a solo exhibition Women with Fringes etc. at Anna Schwartz Gallery. In 2021, Lauren was included in the TarraWarra Biennial: Slow Moving Waters and in 2020 worked with the Kaldor Public Art Project 36: do it (Australia). In 2016, Lauren presented Salt Lines: Play It As It Sounds, Performance Instruments, a site-specific installation at Carriageworks as part of the Biennale of Sydney. Lauren’s works are represented in major collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Chartwell Collection, Auckland. Lauren has been awarded the AGNSW Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris Studio in 2023.

Lauren Brincat is represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery.

Leah Giblin is a textile artist and costume designer working on Gadigal country. Leah completed a costume degree at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in 2009 and has worked in the film and television industry on films such as The Great Gatsby, The Wolverine, Mad Max and The Chronicles of Narnia.

Leah has collaborated on textile and costume projects with visual artists; Rochelle Haley, Mikala Dwyer, Koji Ryui, Lauren Brincat, Natalya Hughes, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Justene Williams, Techa Noble, Diana Baker-Smith and Kate Blackmore.

In 2016, Leah worked with long-time collaborator Lauren Brincat to create Salt Lines: Play It As It Sounds, Performance Instruments (2016), a site-specific installation at Carriageworks as part of the Biennale of Sydney. Since then, Leah and Lauren have continued to create large scale textile artworks together including Other Tempo for Carriageworks and Performance Space in 2019 and Tutti Presto fff for Sydney Opera House and Vivid in 2022.

With a focus on sustainability and reducing textile waste, Leah has taught workshops on mending, natural dyeing, and upcycling at her studio in Rockdale as well as for The Australian Museum, The Opera House for the All About Women series and Cornersmith Cooking School. Her sustainable clothing label Day Keeper is designed and made in Sydney.

Hybridise the masculine and feminine, person and animal, biology and technology. The set and costumes work simultaneously to replicate, mimic, produce, and reproduce. Drawing with silk instruments, these mossy landscapes capture atmosphere, becoming extensions of the costumes, lichens, fungus, gills, and spinous structures forming complete sequences.

Functioning garments perform as second skins, growths or protective shields. These augmentations encourage us to challenge, subvert and remind us of what’s needed to be human, alive. They compel us to consider alternative views, the moving pleats have continuous contours, changing the topography.

The sound this set exudes jolts us from our slumber. Strong colour adds strength, instruction and discordant notes. The rope threads act as mycorrhizal networksweaving and shifting between chaos and deconstructed nature. They form a breathing ever-changing habitat.