2021 Australian Interior Design Awards: Premier Award for Australian Interior Design

Jury comment

The jury unanimously agreed that The Bleeding Tree deserves the Premier Award for Australian Interior Design for the way its powerful presentation reflects the fundamentals of interior design. As a stage set that has been created with light, shade and scale, and where budget was a concern, The Bleeding Tree conveys the true meaning of our craft and also promotes a strong social message around domestic violence. At its core, the best interior design influences emotion and this project does that in the simplest yet most impactful way. If even one piece is removed, it’s nothing, but in its complete simplicity, The Bleeding Tree is everything.

Design Statement

Angus Cerini’s crafted play The Bleeding Tree taps into the theme of ongoing violence against women, challenging notions of disempowerment, using black humour to present discomfort. To enable the clarity of Cerini’s words to be preserved, the set design needed to be uncluttered and restrained, providing a backdrop that amplifies the emotion and enhances the starkness. The design embodies and supports the narrative arc of the work, from constraint, oppression and volatility through to strength, stability and regaining control.

Liminal Spaces’ involvement showcases how the spatially tuned sensibility of architects/interior designers, and our awareness of how body and space inform one another, can add value to contemporary performances. The added layer provided by the spatial context can heighten meaning, enrich visual interpretations and intensify theatrical experiences.

The simple set design, or transformable “installation,” created for this performance is innovative in the way that the distillation of spatial design is used to interconnect with the theatrical themes, amplifying, supporting and enhancing the performances of the actors and the narrative, contributing to the element of surprise and the unexpected.

Design practice — Liminal Spaces

Project team — Marta Dusseldorp, Ben Winspear (both Archipelago Productions), Paul Colegrave, Ellen Roe, Glenn Richards, Jason James, Jane Johnson, Kartanya Maynard

The Premier Award for Australian Interior Design is supported by Dulux. The Australian Interior Design Awards are presented by the Design Institute of Australia and Artichoke magazine. For more images of this project, see the Australian Interior Design Awards gallery.