ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a playwright, educator, installation artist, and puppet designer. I build masks, marionette puppets, backpack puppets, and shadow puppets for films and live performances using wood, paper mache, and other sculpting techniques. I create works in traditional gallery and theatre settings and site-specifically in non-traditional spaces. I have created installations on a museum ship, in an abandoned hospital, in a Victorian house, in a national park, a 1950s hotel, and other locations.
I care very deeply about exploring the effects of moral injury on individuals, perpetrators, families, and communities. I am passionate about social justice, feminism, exploring privilege, neurodiversity, and stewardship of the environment. The work I create is centered around these issues and themes.
Mythology, fairy tales, speculative fiction, and history majorly influence my creative practice. I am drawn to speculative fiction as a way to reexamine our world and imagine and explore different ways of being and perceiving. Plays inspired by historical characters and past events can reexamine history from the perspective of a voice not normally heard. I am particularly interested in working class and women’s history and using the past to discuss and understand the present.
lavinia roberts 