The Swallows

Designer for this poetic, cross-disciplinary vocal theatre work by long-term collaborator Sandra Fiona Long. The piece emerges from an intricate sound world of voice, strings, and objects, telling the story of Aunty, rooted in her daily connection to the natural world.

As Aunty walks the land, she begins to break free from the pressures of a built-up environment, personal memory, and inherited patterns. But the land itself insists on being heard, altered by colonisation and past damage, with the buried creeks calling loudly from beneath. Eventually, they will rise.

The design responded directly to these themes: an in-the-round set composed of real botanical elements—eucalyptus and other native species—interwoven with industrial fragments, metalwork features, and instruments. This interplay of the organic and the manufactured echoed the story’s tensions between nature and development, memory and reclamation.

Set within a world of environmental transformation, the work explores the impact of colonisation, the erasure of waterways, and the potential for both land and people to reclaim agency—to fly free, while the landscape gets its own back.

Joanne was a nominated Finalist in the Green Room Awards 2025 for Outstanding Production Design for this production.