[In]operabilities

Whether it’s an opera house, a theatre or a concert hall, people gather in foyers around the world to get in the mood for the sensory experience of art. Yet the foyer is much more than just a place people pass through: it is a portal, a threshold between everyday life and art. Here, drinks, gossip and glamorous wardrobes do the rounds. Here, the audience itself takes centre stage. Yet what for some is a place of joyful rites of passage quickly becomes, for others, an insurmountable boundary, a barrier. In a team of around 20 international artists from diverse disciplines and with varied styles of perception, the Hamburg-based group [in]operabilities is spending two weeks researching a foyer that prioritises multisensory experience and accessibility. In an open showing, they share their prototypes and experiments, such as whispering cushions, audiovisual interval gongs, audible wayfinding systems, or sign language poetic interpretations of gossip.