JHANAE HUTCHINSON LONDON BIRMINGHAM DESIGNER ABOUT
ABOUT
I am a theatre designer working across costume and set, with a practice grounded in critical research, material investigation, and speculative design methodologies. My work examines the relationship between performance design, identity, power, and embodiment, positioning costume and scenography as active agents in meaning-making rather than as supplementary or illustrative elements. Through a process-driven approach, I explore how design can operate as a site of inquiry, capable of questioning dominant narratives and exposing underlying social, cultural, and political structures.
My practice is informed by interdisciplinary research spanning performance studies, critical race theory, and material culture. As a Black British designer of Jamaican and Antiguan heritage, I am particularly interested in issues of visibility, representation, and authorship within theatrical space, and in how marginalised bodies are constructed, regulated, or resisted through design. These concerns manifest through iterative experimentation, where conceptual research is translated into spatial and material propositions that foreground the body as both a physical and symbolic site.
Positioned within contemporary discourses on performance design, my work engages with speculative strategies to imagine alternative modes of embodiment and spectatorship. By prioritising process, research, and critical reflection, I aim to produce design outcomes that challenge conventional hierarchies within theatre-making and contribute to ongoing conversations around the social and political potential of performance design.