Into the Sublime: The Eidophusikon Reimagined Artistic Director, October 2024

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In October 2024, I served as Artistic Director for Into the Sublime: The Eidophusikon Reimagined, an ambitious multidisciplinary project led by artist, filmmaker, and scholar Dr. Gillian McIver. This extraordinary installation reimagined Philip James de Loutherbourg RA's original 18th-century Eidophusikon—widely considered a crucial forerunner to cinema—by fusing historical reconstruction with cutting-edge contemporary artistic practice.

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The installation transformed Swedenborg House's atmospheric Wynter Room, a period library steeped in history, into an immersive environment exploring themes of the afterlife, materiality, and the Divine. Drawing heavily on the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg—a known influence on de Loutherbourg—the project combined dramatic scenography, precision lighting, gauze, painted backdrops, atmospheric sound design, and multimedia elements, incorporating work from a diverse collective of contemporary international artists.

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As Artistic Director, my responsibilities encompassed the full creative and production ecosystem.

I provided creative oversight and performance direction for all live activations, collaborating intensively with visual artists, sound designers, and technical teams to create seamless, transformative audience experiences. I developed the artistic framework that unified historical authenticity with contemporary innovation.

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I interpreted de Loutherbourg's original five-scene structure into a contemporary performance model, maintaining fidelity to 18th-century theatrical principles while introducing radical new conceptual approaches. This work bridged the 240-year gap between the original Eidophusikon and contemporary audience expectations.

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I choreographed the complete audience journey, crafting transitions between scenes and moments of engagement to create an immersive narrative flow that honored both the intimate scale of the original and the expansive possibilities of contemporary installation art.

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Working closely with artists including Liane Lang, Shannon Rakochy, Nazir Tanbouli, Natasha Redina, and Marwan ElGamal, I facilitated the integration of diverse contemporary artworks into the visual and narrative architecture. My collaboration with Natasha Redina proved particularly transformative, sparking a deep fascination with glass as a medium that has shaped my artistic development beyond the project itself. This newfound passion has led me to pursue formal training in 2025, with particular interest in architectural glass restoration and the preservation of historic stained glass windows in old churches across Europe. I coordinated with composer Takatsuna Mukai to ensure musical elements enhanced rather than competed with the visual spectacle.

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I liaised between production teams and artists to achieve precise alignment of lighting, sound, projection, and atmospheric effects, overseeing the technical realization of Mark Fairhurst's Eidophusikon construction and Mark Watson's lighting design while ensuring the historical apparatus could accommodate contemporary artistic interventions.

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​Into the Sublime operated as both open exhibition and ticketed performance experience across multiple evenings during the 2024 Bloomsbury Festival. Audiences encountered a layered aesthetic world where 18th-century scenographic innovation merged with contemporary visual storytelling, creating profound moments of awe, contemplation, and resonance with Swedenborg's metaphysical vision.

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This project represents a significant milestone in my ongoing exploration of experimental performance and cross-arts collaboration, demonstrating how historical theatrical forms can be revitalized to speak to contemporary audiences while honoring their original transformative power.

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The project exemplified my commitment to creating theatrical experiences that honor both artistic excellence and meaningful transformation—spaces where historical innovation meets contemporary urgency, and where audiences encounter not just entertainment, but genuine transcendence.