Sea of Light

Geoff Cobham is one of Australia’s leading culture professionals with over 40 years’ experience collaborating in all forms of theatre. His artistic reputation both nationally and internationally comes from an outstanding multi-award-winning career working with several of Australia’s foremost arts organisations and events. He spent ten years as Associate Director of dance theatre Force Majeure, five years as resident designer at State Theatre Company South Australia and has worked in senior management roles at Sydney Festival, Adelaide Festival and WOMAD. Geoff founded Bluebottle in 1998, an award-winning lighting design company which integrates outstanding lighting design into theatres, galleries, installations, architecture, exhibitions and music. He has a long and notable history with Patch Theatre, having worked on a variety of productions including The Fastest Boy, Emily Loves to Bounce and Me & My Shadow before taking the reins as Artistic Director in 2018. Over the past three years Geoff has created in-theatre works ZOOOM, I Wish… and Home and installation works Firefly Forest, Glow, The Lighthouse, Mirror Mirror, and Sea of Light.

Michelle ‘Maddog’ Delaney is a maker of things. Places, spaces, feelings and things – forests in disused buildings, themed bars and bespoke furniture, shattering plaster BMX wheels, Ediacaran based décor, rocket stands and giant cocoons, and more. She has worked as a designer, production manager, builder, scenic artist, stage manager, sourcer and sorcerer for major companies, festivals and independent artists. She likes nothing better than working in great teams to produce beautiful experiences. She is currently Maker in Residence at Patch Theatre and, with Geoff Cobham, has co-designed all of Patch’s shows since 2019. Maddog’s design credits include Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2018–2021, Dark Mofo 2018 & 2019, Adelaide Festival 2013–2016, Darwin Festival 2010– 2015, Adelaide Fringe 2007–2009, Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2012, Red Sky Morning – State Theatre Company of South Australia (2016), and co-design with Meg Wilson on Life is Short and Long – Emma Beech and Vitalstatistix (2016).

Since 2003 Jason Sweeney has collaborated with some of Australia’s leading performing arts companies and organisations as well as directing and creating a number of his own interactive works for the internet and participatory community engagement projects for galleries and theatre spaces. As a composer of electronic music, he has also been releasing music internationally with Panoptique Electrical and solo project Sweeney. Over the last few years Jason has completed a trilogy of research sound-based works focused on quietness and urban ecologies, including major projects Stereopublic: Crowdsourcing the Quiet which won a TED City2.0 Prize and the research odyssey, Quiet Ecology. In 2021 he released the major double album retrospective Decades (2001-2021).

Elizabeth Yanyi Close is an Anangu woman from the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Language Groups, whose family links are to the communities of Pukutja and Amata in the APY Lands. Elizabeth was born in Adelaide but grew up in outback SA, returning to Adelaide to complete her secondary schooling, and attend University to complete a Bachelor of Nursing and a Graduate Certificate in Emergency Nursing. Elizabeth worked as a Registered Nurse in the Emergency Department of a busy Adelaide Metropolitan Hospital for a decade, while using art as a means of processing the intergenerational trauma and its impact on her family. In 2007, Elizabeth began to paint professionally and exhibit her work throughout Adelaide and her practice organically grew as she balanced nursing, art and motherhood. By 2014 she had built up a full-time arts practice, and after the birth of their second child, Elizabeth and her husband decided to move home to the APY so that they could immerse their children in their culture and language. Elizabeth reconnected with much of her Grandmothers family and learned much more about her family, her Tjukurpa and her Country from her Tjamu. This growth as an Aboriginal woman was profoundly reflected in the evolution of her artwork. Elizabeth is based in Adelaide and has three Purungu Skin Anangu children; Isaiah Yungana, Emmeline Tjikatu and Bentji Nganantju; and a dingo with no tail.

Wendy has done set and costume design for a variety of performing arts companies and has done everything else from site co-ordination to prop maker and scenic artist. Set and Costume Designer Credits include: Worldhood [Australian Dance Theatre], One [Tutti], Skip Miller [Brink Productions], The Little Green Tractor [Patch Theatre], Ruby Bruise [The Misery Children & Vitalstatistix], Harbinger [Brink Productions], Man Covets Bird [Slingsby], Superheroes [Stone/Castro Productions], The Hypochondriac [Brink Productions], Freaky [Cirkidz & Circus Monoxide], After The End [Adelaide Fringe 09], Beetle Graduation [Brink Productions), The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy [Slingsby 2007], and Three Men in a Tub [Fringe 2009]. Other roles have included Designer and builder of Travelling Street Theatre, Assistant Designer for the Persian Garden, [Adelaide Festival of Arts Nightclub 2008 & 2006]. Site Coordinator [WOMADelaide 07], Prop Maker & Scenic Artist [Moonlantern Parade 2007–2009, Fringe Parade 2009, Windmill Performing Arts, State Theatre Company of SA, Australian Dance Theatre and Performing Lines Wicked The Musical].