In response to Karel Capek's play 'The White Plague', Sophie Altham and I designed a site specific performance in a supermarket, relocating the play’s politicised setting of war and disease to that of consumerism. Our design was selected for the Prague Quadrennial's 2023 Studio.
We were interested in playing with the absurdities of the supermarket as a comment on the horrors of mass production and monopoly power while equally acknowledging our reliance on their supply chains. We curated each aisle, ranging from disarray and decay to highly controlled colour coordination. Store items were incorporated into the set, props and costumes. Remaining true to the play with its dark satire, unresolved ending and the absurdity of the situations and characters, we have expressed and critiqued our own time, much as Capek did in 1937.
The White Plague