KRIT
kristen robinson
Hi, you are reading this because you have come to this place (my website) for some purpose. Perhaps you are an old collaborator looking at what we made together, perhaps you are a potential new collaborator looking for a sign that we share a connection or can ignite inspiration in each other, perhaps you are a student or a young artist trying to find your path, or maybe you were just told to click here by some algorithm and so you did. Anyway, hi again, and thank you for taking the time to look and read.
I have been taking the time to re-clarify why I am compelled to make the art that I make. Un-originally, it all got a little muddy in 2020/2021, before it used to be very clear. I have left the old clear me at the bottom as record of where I have been and what I used to think, in case you are interested. I put a line through it all (which felt good) even though some of it remains true.
I am in this present moment an artist in doubt. It felt important to say that because even if you have extreme faith in a calling you can, in fact, be in times of great darkness. The doubt for me leads to very important questioning, which leads to a movement away from complacency.
I do not doubt the exuberant capacity of the human imagination. For me, the power of theatre, when properly accessed, is in its ability to unlock a collective imagination, and for that imagination to create radical empathy and transformation amongst skeptical and untrusting strangers. I believe it requires me to trust and to step out of myself. It is, selfless, impermanent and now.
As an artist, I have great talent in taking large epic artistic messes and creating a vision, a point of view, a world that it can inhabit and grow in. This often takes the form of a complex, seemingly impossible, script, where the rules of gravity and time have been ignored. I am in love with creating a unique order, structure, and world and I am most inspired when I am being asked impossible questions about my own humanity. I am forever looking closely at us weirdo fallible humans and trying to understand our spirit.
I often define myself by a devotion to hard work and practice, and a belief in my unique vision as an artist. I know that to access the most complex aspects of my artistry these elements must remain. As an artist, which to me encompasses the medium of set design, I must be responsible to create space with care. To create the right vessel, I must continuously and responsibly educate myself outside my singular experience. Theatre at its best reflects multiplicity, and complexity. At its worst it is habitual, singular, and regular.
I am in love with the words catalyst, obstacle, and vessel, and their potential. They activate, they incite, they affect. I hate the words concept, transition, and set. They limit, they increase the feeling of faux facade. To me, my vessels are incomplete and meaningless until they are inhabited by the actor and can be witnessed by an audience. I hate spaces that are riddled with stuff for stuffs sake. I want to know why each choice in object and material NEEDS to be there.
I fell in love with theater because it gets destroyed at the end. I am not interested in forever museum theater. For me it only lives once, but with that destruction, that one time use, comes great material waste. Which makes me most recently want to reject constructing anything and just inhabit space that already exists: a sidewalk, a church basement, Port Authority Bus Terminal. The literal theater building often feels like a fortress that is impenetrable for the people who live right next to it. That it creates this distance between humans, rather than creating a bridge. So much infrastructure, and so much waste.
To be very honest with you right now, as an artist it is not totally clear what my future is. Can I push to originate my own work? If I only make work that relies on found space could I sustain myself? I first was a painter, a studio artist, but I chose to leave that behind because it didn’t scare me enough, it didn’t ask me to be with other people.
I trust in my capacity, and the capacity of those around me. I am in love with the people I have created and imagined with, and I am in love with the future people I have not met yet.
As you can see, I am a bit of a mess but as I said before, messes inspire me.
-Krit
AS AN ARTIST
I define myself by a devotion to hard work, practice, and a deep belief in the capacity of human imagination.
I understand my purpose is to be truthful: truthful to the art form, truthful to the story of the human spirit, truthful to my own art. How do I manifest that truth? By giving myself fully to the work; by not accepting harmful compromises; by actively working against apathy.
Theatre requires me to trust and work with others. It is a meditation on selflessness and impermanence. This trust while frightening at times, is among the most compelling challenges of theatre, art, and life.
AS A TEACHER
I teach that a set designer is a generator of ideas, not just a respondent, and the human body is the central building block around which a space is created. Set design is centered on trust, selflessness and impermanence. A designer must be a rigorous union between a highly skilled tradesperson and artist. As a professor of set design I must be a caring and generous mentor. My own mentors are my most trusted critics and strongest supporters. I provide students with professional opportunities as well as academic guidance. Lastly, it is important to understand Set Design in relationship to diversity of experience. We live in a global community. It is my job to inspire both the practiced theater makers to the un-exposed. Theater is not just for theater makers. It is universal.
