LOS ANGELES, CA.- USC Fisher Museum of Art is now presenting Scene Shift: The Exhibition. Inspired by the book, Scene Shift: US Set Designers in Conversation, the exhibition features work by Abigail DeVille, Regina Garcia, Marsha Ginsberg, Shing Yin Khor, Mimi Lien, Collette Pollard, Deb O, and others. On view since February 2 through April 6, 2024, this exhibition offers visitors an immersive experience to explore the work of contemporary scenic designers up close and personal.

“The first exhibition of its kind, Scene Shift, places contemporary scenic designers front and center, focusing on the scenery and allowing the designer to own what they make in a new way," said exhibition co-curator Sibyl Wickersheimer. “For many years, our experience has existed within a collective of voices as a collaborator. In this exhibit, I am interested in singling out the designers' voices and boldly questioning what is considered art and what is considered design.”

“What we create is often quite temporary and is created to evoke an immediacy between the audience and the story being told," said exhibition co-curator Maureen Weiss. “While I have always valued the idea that my work is fleeting, I am also curious about the ways that the visual world we create can exist outside of a theater setting in a more permanent environment. Do the objects constitute a meaning that can exist in a new way while also holding true to the immediacy of a theatrical experience?”

“This is an ambitious collaboration between the Fisher Museum of Art, the School of Dramatic Arts, the School of Cinematic Arts, The Roski School of Art and Design at USC, and the most prominent scenic designers in the country,” said USC Museums Director, Bethany Montagano. “This exhibition not only brings Maureen Weiss and Sibyl Wickersheimer's book, Scene Shift, to life, it also paves the way for more cutting-edge exhibitions from the Fisher Museum of Art that challenge the definition of museums and the definition of art.”

About the book

In Scene Shift: U.S. Set Designers in Conversation, thirty set designers provide the next generation a view into a variety of career paths while also validating and encouraging an appreciation of their diverse artistic accomplishments.

Over the course of seven months, Maureen Weiss and Sibyl Wickersheimer spoke with 28 other designers about their process, the communities to which they contribute, and what it means to be a collaborator in a field that requires constant adaptation and much compromise. The design and the designer have a story to tell that goes beyond the immediate collaboration.

Readers get an intimate perspective providing insight into a somewhat mysterious world that has been under-valued and under-evaluated. The conversations include designers who are commercially successful, artistically successful, and those who have existed on the fringes of the theater world whose work is not necessarily definable and, therefore, not as visible.

This book showcases contemporary U.S. set design by engaging designers with one another, pairing dialogue and imagery from varied experiences and practices. Within these pages, we witness an expansion of traditional theatrical set design, evolving fluidly to include such work as performance art, installation, community events, and exhibitions, to name a few.

Curators

Maureen Weiss is a Professor of Set Design at Los Angeles City College. She has been part of the Los Angeles non-profit art and theatre scene for the past 25 years, with a deep interest in cultivating conversations around the importance of mess. Maureen is also the curator of a mobile theatre truck, The Popwagon.

Sibyl Wickersheimer designs inside and outside of theatre spaces across the U.S. Her interests span from immersive installations and museum exhibitions to design for healthcare. She also teaches set design as an Associate Professor at University of Southern California.

Artists

Abigail DeVille is an artist working in sculpture, mixed-media, and site-specific installations based in New York City. DeVille received an MFA from Yale University and a BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Maintaining a long-standing interest in marginalized people and places, DeVille creates site-specific immersive installations designed to bring attention to these forgotten stories, such as with the sculpture she built on the site of a former African American burial ground in Harlem. DeVille often works with objects and materials sourced from the area surrounding the exhibition site.

Deb O's extensive scenography training and range of experiences, as well as her background in folk art, dance, gymnastics, clowning, puppetry, found object art, sculpture, and mask making, have lent themselves to innovative approaches to the creation of unique theatrical events. After spending eighteen years working in a factory making ECUs (electronic control units) in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Deb O decided to go to Marquette University where she received her undergraduate degree in theater design with a minor in studio art and art history. She then went on to receive her MFA in Theatre Design at Yale School of Drama.

Shing Yin Khor is an installation artist, cartoonist, game designer, and experienced set designer exploring mythic Americana, new human rituals, and collaborative worldbuilding. Khor’s work explores invented human histories and rituals in science fiction and fantasy universes while developing and designing collaborative world-building processes. Khor’s award-winning experience in game design work centers on the bridge between physical making and traditional tabletop RPGs, kind and awkward emotional connections, and new traditions and rituals.

Regina Garcia is a Chicago-based scenic designer from Puerto Rico. She has long-standing relationships with the St. Louis Black Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the renowned Teatros, including Repertorio Español, the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Teatro Vista, INTAR, and Pregones Theater. Regina is a Fellow of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Designers and the Princess Grace Awards, USA; a Regional Associate member of the League of Professional Theatre Women; and a company member with both Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, Chicago and Boundless Theatre Company, San Juan/New York. She is the Head of the Scenic Design program at The Theatre School, DePaul University.

Marsha Ginsberg is a visual artist and stage designer working between performance, opera and photo/installation formats. She received her MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art with post-grad studies at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. She has designed spaces and clothes for live performances in major theaters and museums in New York City, and regionally throughout the United States.

Mimi Lien is a designer of sets/environments for theater, dance, and opera. Arriving at set design from a background in architecture, her work often focuses on the interaction between audience/environment and object/performer. She hails from New Haven, CT and is based in Brooklyn, NY. In 2015, she was named a MacArthur Fellow, and is the first set designer ever to achieve this distinction.

Collette Pollard resides in Chicago, designing scenery locally, regionally, and internationally. Collette was the recipient of the Michael Merritt Maggio Emerging Designer Award in 2010 and received her MFA from Northwestern University. She is the recipient of several Jeff Awards and is an Associate Professor of Scenic Design at University of Illinois at Chicago.

USC Fisher Museum of Art
Scene Shift: The Exhibit
On view February 2 – April 6, 2024