2 Degrees Festival - Stage Design (2023)
2 Degrees is a first year music festival in Victoria celebrating community, arts and connection. I designed the 3 stages for the 2000 person festival.
Ngarimilli - Main Stage: In collaboration with mural artist Drez
Drez is a Melbourne based mural artist who’s work has gone from hidden underpass walls to commercial shop fronts and city murals. The large scale application of gradient colours is mesmerizing and has a meditative quality. Commissioning Drez will integrate more visual art into the festival landscape and would stand as a striking feature from day to night.
With further conversations with the lighting team, we will play with colour illusions (shining certain coloured light on certain paint colours to change its appearance). I’m inspired by modernist architecture which would be brought to life by Drez’s work. The clean, simple shapes would contrast with the natural landscape without falling into an industrial aesthetic. My aim here is for the main stage to stand with strength but also full of positive energy - a welcome breath of fresh air to all who dance around it.
Rendezvous - Band Stage: To facilitate up to 8 piece bands
My vision for Rendezvous is to create a space where community, emerging artists and musicians can be celebrated. I’m inspired by Scandinavian and Japanese applications of timber work which balance an organic, warm material with clean, modern design. From a practical standpoint, using timber in this way allows us to disassemble the stages and have a building material to reuse for years to come. I am inspired by Japanese tea houses not only for their architecture, but for their purpose of gathering and sharing in a ritual - A meeting place (Rendezvous).
Xanadu Beach - Waterside stage
I’ve taken inspiration from the water on the property, disco mirror balls and the already existing 2 degrees graphic design and proposed the use of pressed aluminum sheeting which looks like rippled water. This kind of material bounces light and reflections in such a beautiful way from day to night. Sheeting can be kept and used in many different cladding and applications for years to come. Once again taking inspiration from disco imagery, I’ve integrated a circular cut out in the form of the stage. This plays with negative and positive space, bringing the landscape into the design as the audience can see beyond the stage structure. This interpretation of a beach stage is quite abstract and isn’t the classic beach vibe, but I believe pushing those boundaries of expectation will be really memorable for the audience.
