19 May 2026
Artist Highlight - Evyn Gensurowsky
Interview and Review
Evyn is a costume designer and maker currently based in London. Her work focuses on creating a visual language for each character from initial idea to final photograph or performance. After graduating from Wimbledon College of Arts, she has worked on various film and television productions such as The Rings of Power. She is currently focusing on creating her own line of pieces and collaborating with other multidisciplinary artists.
ARTIST INTERVIEW
1. In the costume for Ulrica, raffia becomes the central material. What drew you to this natural fibre when developing the character’s visual identity?
When developing the characters visual identity, I was drawn to use raffia as it’s central material through the design process. First, as part of a project brief I was challenged to create in only neutral tones, so, I decided to focus on texture and silhouette. Second, As the character is a fortune teller the other characters in the opera meet in the woods, I wanted to use a natural material. The play also takes place in Sweden, and through my research I came across Swedish straw weaving. Raffia was chosen as it is a type of straw easily accessible and could replicate what I had started to envision.
2. The garment appears as though it has been intuitively constructed from surrounding materials. How did the idea of Ulrica as a figure connected to nature shape the design process?
The idea of Ulrica as a figure connected to nature shaped the design process. She is rooted to the earth and it’s nuances as her skirt and sleeves trail the ground. The twists and turns of the weaving were created intuitively as I went along, as if I were Ulrica using found materials. Creating a natural fluid look as if she were covered in branches or roots that grew and curled on her.
3. You describe allowing the material to guide the development of the costume. How did working directly with raffia influence the final form and silhouette?
While working with raffia, it’s properties guided the development of the final form and silhouette. The average length of a strand of raffia is about 100cm, some shorter or longer, with varying thickness in each strand. So, I became limited to its full length when designing. I used the longer pieces for the skirt, thicker strands for when I want more coverage and thinner strands for less coverage. With it, I was able to braid and weave patterns that wrap around the body. Or use a single strand threaded on a needle to connect and weave with other strands or braids.
4. The weaving and plaiting techniques create a layered, tactile surface. How do these textures contribute to the narrative presence of the character?
The textures contribute to the narrative presence of the character through their woven nature. The weave is fluid and natural. Like Ulrica and her habitat. They wrap around her body concealing hidden knowledge and fortune. Pieces jut out, become rough, or smoothed over reflecting her emotional inner world. Her motives, past, present and future are under the woven veil.
5. Ulrica is a fortune teller whose role involves revealing hidden truths. How does the costume visually communicate this sense of mystery and knowledge?
The costume visually communicates a sense of mystery and hidden truths through the plaiting and weaving techniques used. While viewing the costume, it can be hard to discern where each braid begins or ends, where one strand connects to the other adding to the mystery of how it was created. The weaves and plaits moving and morphing as one’s eye travels the costume as time and future moves and changes. It becomes a web of interconnecting strands of raffia- reflecting how knowledge can be hidden or revealed.
6. Costume often operates between sculpture, clothing, and performance. How do you consider the object differently when it exists outside the stage context?
Outside of the stage context, the object can be considered differently. Viewed in its own the techniques and materials used to create the piece can be solely observed. Or, when observed with written context the viewer can discern and understand the process and narrative behind it.
7. Your practice focuses on making invisible emotions or motives visible through costume. How does this particular garment embody aspects of Ulrica’s inner world?
This costume embodies aspects of Ulrica’s inner and outer world making emotions and motives visible. A braid can be a breath of a hidden emotion that has grown, wrapped, and curled on her body. Clusters of raffia woven in a particular direction could indicate a motive or reflect a time in life. Reading each pattern of a plait can be like reading tea leaves. As she gives out fortunes, when the participant views her they can see themselves through the weave of her costume. View their emotions while their past, present, and future become visible. Each characters emotional truth and future becomes entangled with Ulrica’s and they see themselves in her and vice versa. Through this, invisible knowledge and narratives are made visible.
8. Within The Invisible Made Visible, the work highlights the labour embedded in hand construction. What aspects of the making process do you hope viewers become aware of when encountering this piece?
When viewers encounter this piece I hope that they become aware of the craft and narrative put into this piece. That they can imagine themselves slowing down and creating with their own hands. Slowing their breath, quieting their mind and the world. Envisioning the character and her narrative. I also hope that they walk away with the appreciation and need for the celebration of human artistic handiwork and the slow process of creating, rejecting the ever increasing need for fast consumption that we have become privileged too.
MATERIAL, CHARACTER, AND THE LANGUAGE OF MAKING
Review by Chih-Yang Chen, Art Director
Evyn’s costume for Ulrica feels as though it has grown rather than been designed. The use of raffia gives it a raw, tactile presence, something closer to gathered material than constructed garment. Strands extend, twist, and fall in ways that resist a fixed outline. The silhouette is unstable, shifting depending on how the body moves within it.
The connection to landscape is immediate. The material choice, combined with the way it is handled, places the figure somewhere between human and environment. The costume does not sit on the body in a conventional way. It wraps, trails, and extends outward, suggesting something rooted, almost anchored. At times it feels protective, at others slightly exposed.
There is a strong sense of intuition in how the piece is made. The weaving and plaiting do not follow a rigid system. Instead, they move in different directions, building up density in some areas and opening in others. You can see where strands overlap, where they separate, where they are pulled tighter or left loose. These decisions are not hidden. They remain visible, forming the surface of the work.
That visibility contributes to how the character is read. The costume doesn’t rely on added symbolism. It works through its structure. The interwoven strands create a surface that is difficult to fully read. There is no clear beginning or end, no single point to focus on. The eye moves across it, following connections that don’t quite resolve. That uncertainty reflects the role of Ulrica as a figure who deals with knowledge that is partial, shifting, not entirely accessible.
Material limitations also shape the outcome. The fixed length and variation of each raffia strand influence how the form develops. Longer strands extend the body, shorter ones create density. This reliance on what the material allows gives the work a sense of negotiation rather than control. The final form feels like a result of that process rather than a pre-defined design.
Outside of performance, the costume shifts again. Without movement, it becomes more clearly an object. The textures, the joins, the construction come forward. But it still carries a sense of potential movement, as if it were waiting to be activated.
What stays with you is how closely the making and the meaning are tied together. The labour is present in every strand, but it doesn’t feel excessive. It builds gradually through repetition, through small decisions. The work doesn’t separate character from material. It allows one to emerge through the other.