#MissingLiveTheatre campaign by Scene Change, Royal Opera House
Photograph by Marc Brenner
#MissingLiveTheatre campaign by Scene Change, the collective of British Theatre Designers. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA for The Guardian
Jemima Robinson is a visual artist and designer working in performance, painting, illustration, collage, and ceramics. Central to Jemima’s practice is the belief that stories break boundaries and connected to how we see the world and each other. Themes often explored in her work are social exclusion, race, identity and cultural politics.
Following an undergraduate degree in Sociology from the University of Bath, Jemima went on to gain a distinction in her Art & Design Foundation course at Wimbledon College of Art. She has an MA in Theatre Design from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School where she won the BOV Technical Theatre Award.
As well as her designs for performance, Jemima’s art & design work has been exhibited at the National Theatre and Royal Festival Hall. She is a former resident artist at Kenya’s Kuona Arts Trust in Nairobi and resident designer for Istanbul’s Talimhane Theatre.
Jemima was awarded the Max Rayne Design Bursary at the National Theatre which she completed in March 2018. Jemima won the prestigious Linbury Prize for Stage Design in 2011 for ‘The Tempest’ directed by Paul Hart. She has been nominated for Best Set Design OFF WEST END awards for 'Br'er Cotton' at Theatre 503 and for 'Thebes Land' at the Arcola Theatre and was the winner of the ‘Independent Opera Award’ with Max Hoehn for their production of ‘Biedermann and the Arsonists’ at Sadlers Wells.
Her recent Design credits include: L’exilir of Love (Longborough Opera) Much Ado About Nothing (RSC), The Persians and Cyclops (Cambridge Greek Play), Mythosphere (Stone Nest), Frankenstein (Beijing Inside Outside theatre), Everything (Company 3), I’ll Take you to Mrs Cole (Complicité and POLKA Theatre UK Tour) Whitewash (SOHO Theatre) The Trick (Bush Theatre and UK tour), Keith (Arcola), Twelfth Night (Guangzhou Dramatic Arts Centre, China in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company), Playing with Scale (National Theatre exhibition: Wolfson gallery), Hansel and Gretel (Opera for Hidden Woods, Iford Arts), Br'er Cotton (Theatre 503, Nominated for Best Set Design for OFF WEST END Awards), The Majority (Dorfman, National Theatre), New Nigerians, Thebes Land (Nominated for Best Set Design and Winner of Best Production for OFF WEST END Awards, Maria de Buenos Aires (Arcola); Parallel Yerma (Young Vic); License to Ill, This Will End Badly, Little Malcolm and his struggle against the Eunuchs (Southwark Playhouse); Biedermann and the Arsonists, Synergies: NEBT (Sadlers Wells); Mapping Brent (Tricycle Theatre), Dyl, Sparks (Old Red Lion); Hearing Things (Albany), The Dark Room (Theatre 503), The Tempest (Watermill Theatre), I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change (Zorlu Centre, Istanbul).
Jemima has also designed events, exhibitions, merchandise and foyers for the National Theatre, King's Cross Theatre and Waldorf Hotel. She has run workshops and worked on community projects for The Young Vic, Kiln Theatre (The Tricycle), Iford Arts and the National Theatre.
Jemima was a founding member of Scene Change, A Community for Stage Designers Taking Action for Theatre.
Forthcoming works include Cosi Fan Tutte for Welsh National Opera, 2024.
Jemima is represented by Davina Shah at TEAM
e: davina@team-artists.co.uk
t: +44 (0)207 281 6811