This collection of graphic print material documents Suzanne Boccalatte's designs for the Performance Space, a national centre for contemporary art and performance. For this commission, the designer created an efficient design that functions simultaneously as a publicity poster and program brochure when concertina folded. Boccalatte's playful use of photography and recycled 'found' objects (monkey baby soft toy, ceramic vase of flowers, yellow plastic jumpsuit, plastic chair) give the designs a unique point of difference in a visually cluttered world.

Boccalatte's ongoing annual commission challenged the designer to cost effectively design the centre's quarterly programs. Confronted with the dilemma of how to find a design that could be adapted to four calendar seasons but did not favour any particular artist or art form, Suzanne Boccalatte decided to build on the ideas behind her earlier Performance Space logo design of 2000. This logo design revolved around a jumping Â?pÂ? which doubled as an exclamation mark and played with notions of space, action and performance. The logo appeared on all subsequent Performance Space posters.

For the posters, Boccalatte developed the 'performance in space' concept of the logo further by photographing inanimate objects in space for the posters of 2005. The notion of 'performance in space' was then developed even more for subsequent Performance Space poster designs, including the January-March 2006 poster design. This suggests movement through physical urban space at the same time as the Performance Space physically moved, from its Cleveland Street premises in Surry Hills to the Carriage Works building at 245 Wilson Street, Eveleigh, Redfern. (ref: Feb-March 2007 poster on Blue File)

Boccalatte is a small Sydney-based graphic design studio.
The design and photography for these posters was undertaken by Suzanne Boccalatte, Principal of Boccalatte. Starting with a selection of objects that did not have anything to do with performance in themselves, Suzanne threw them into the air and photographed them against the sky using a small digital camera. These objects thus literally became performers in space, a playful take on the organisation's name and philosophy.

Graphic designs commissioned by the Performance Space, Sydney. Designer collaborated with the Performance Space for nine consecutive years from 1999 through to 2008.

Exhibited in the Powerhouse Museum's 2006 Sydney Design festival exhibition, 'In your face: contemporary graphic design' where Suzanne Boccalatte was one of 16 Australian design case studies.

Posters (9), colour offset prints on paper, designed by Suzanne Boccalatte, for the Performance Space, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2005-2007

The posters are designed to efficiently concertina fold into a rectangular landscape format which then functions as a Performance Space program brochure. One is folded.

Posters (2), Performance Space, January - March 2005, paper, designed by Suzanne Boccalatte, Australia, 2005.
Poster features collage of a 'monkey baby' soft toy photograph and a photograph of sunrise, design and photography by Suzanne Boccalatte.

Posters (2), Performance Space, April - June 2005, paper, designed by Suzanne Boccalatte, Australia, 2005.
Rectangular posters depicting a bowl of fruit, soft toy monkey and grass against a blue sky.

Posters (2), Performance Space, July - September 2005, paper, designed by Suzanne Boccalatte, Australia, 2005.
Rectangular poster depicting a red and gold chair against a sky backdrop.

Posters (2), Performance Space, October - December 2005, paper, designed by Suzanne Boccalatte, Australia, 2005.
Rectangular poster depicting a person dressed in a yellow outfit, a chair and soft toy monkey against a sky backdrop.

Poster, folded, Performance Space, January - March 2006, paper, designed by Suzanne Boccalatte, Australia, 2006.
Folded landscape rectangular format Performance Space poster / brochure depicting a woman in a pink sundress with camera and a large snail on converging roads leading off into the distance. The image is replicated at each end of the poster.

Made: 2005 - 2007

2008/147/1

2005 - 2007