Graphic Design

I developed my Graphic Design skills during my MA in Design at Goldsmiths University of London. There, for the final dissertation I designed my research about Performativity of Absence. During my PhD studies in Theatre at Royal Holloway University of London I worked with a team of dedicated PhD students to create Platform Journal of Theatre and Performance. I designed the entire issues for almost three years. Below are some images of selected front covers.

For my own PhD research Ontology of Absence, I looked at ways to visually represent my research through the medium of graphic design. In my final PhD thesis I used acetate, tracing paper, alternative book format and I produced unconventional body of work which displays my theoretical research. My final PhD thesis is available in the Senate House library, in the archive of the University of London.

As an independent scholar I designed an image for Dr Royona Mitra’s book, Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015.

After graduation, I co-edited and designed Justitia – Multidisciplinary Readings of the Work of the Jasmin Vardimon Company, published by Intellect in 2016. The entire book is embedded into a perspective on Justitia, the book is inspired by the revolving set of the performance. Available for purchase here.

Platform Journal of Theatre and Performance at Royal Holloway University of London, 7.1: On Corporeality, Spring 2013

Platform: Journal of Theatre and Performance Arts 6.1: Spectatorship and Participation, Autumn 2011

Platform: Journal of Theatre and Performance Arts 6.2: Representing the Human, Summer 2012 (unpublished)

Platform: Journal of Theatre and Performance Arts 7.2: Staging Play, Playing Stages, Autumn 2013

Conference booklet for The Theatre & Performance Research Association (TaPRA), September 2014 at Royal Holloway University of London.

Ontology of Absence, my PhD thesis at Royal Holloway University of London

Dr Royona Mitra, Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015

Justitia: Multidisciplinary Readings of the Work of the Jasmin Vardimon Company, published by Intellect, 2016. If you look closer at the beams of light, you can see the that  I wrote in them the stage directions from Justitia.

Scenography

During my BA (Hons) in Drama and Performance at University of Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom, I took Scenography and Live Art classes. There I developed my interest in merging art and performance. Throughout my BA studies I focused on Scenography Design, Live Art, Physical Theatre and Theatre Studies.

After graduating I designed sets and installations in London. Below are some pictures from the University of Wolverhampton productions and a professional theatre production – The Siamese Twins, created by a collaboration between Artes Escenicas Rayuela and the Silver Lining Theatre Company.

I took part in Heterotopia Provocation Art Exhibition in London. Together with Alyssa Ueno, we made an installation named Constellation. We created ten boxes with multiple set models and lighting. To see a set, an observer had to look through a small hole. Some of the boxes had magnifying glasses, one contained an aquarium with a small fish swimming through the scenery of the Great Fire of London. All boxes were placed on different hight on a patch of natural grass. When all lights went off, the only thing we could see was the faint light coming from the boxes. The journey joining one box to another became an individual constellation. Just like in The Little Prince, the observer could go on a journey to visit small worlds.

 

Siamese Twins by Artes Escenicas Rayuela and the Silver Lining Theatre

Siamese Twins Review 1: “Company Designer Sylwia Dobkowska has set the play in a world of newspaper. Not only are the set walls plastered with it but all the furniture is made from piled bundles. Should we believe what we read? Who controls the media? As some of the dialogue reminds us, the Kennedy assassination gets reported but what about the daily assassinations around us? Perhaps the newspaper idea is part of the original script not just the idea of the designer, but she has certainly made it work effectively, making it possible to dig a newspaper grave.” Review by Howard Loxton

Siamese Twins Review 2: ‘The main setting is a one-roomed grimy flat (artfully designed by Sylwia Dobkowska using newspapers in multitudinous ways).” Review by Alison Goldie

 

     Off Off Broadway style production at University of Wolverhampton

 

Constellation, an installation made in collaboration with Alyssa Ueno at Heterotopia Provocation Art Exhibition in London

 

Devising Theatre – Psychosis 4:48 production, background images