Alivia Sabatino & Lauren Ohh; set by Ana Maria Camacho, costumes by Elly Ich, lighting by Sam Cheng, photo by Javier Sotres
As our 2024/25 season comes to a close, we’re celebrating the incredible talent within our department. Our final production, The Last of the Pelican Daughters, highlighted the work of many talented student designers, actors, and crews, including second-year M.F.A. student Ana Maria Camacho. We chatted with Ana about her design process and her experience working on the show.
About Ana:
Ana is a Colombian industrial designer and art director specializing in experience design, visual storytelling, and set design for theatre and film. Her recent credits include: Set Designer for The Last of The Pelican Daughters (UBC); Assistant Set Designer for Ring of Fire (The Arts Club Company); Set Designer for TomorrowLove (Telus Studio Theatre, UBC) and Art Director for the short film El Encargo (Espectro Doméstico).
What was the inspiration behind the design?
I wanted to craft a space that felt as emotionally charged as the sisters who inhabit it. There were three pillars to the design concept: a doll-house inspired setting, the house as a living character, and unfolding and disclosures.
What role does the dollhouse play in the narrative?
To represent the deconstruction of the idea of family and home, the house is a symbol of the mother as an ever-present character. Therefore, the dollhouse plays with defined and suggested (abstracted) spaces to travel between reality and memory.
How did you treat the house as a ‘living character’?
The mother’s essence is reflected in the house’s style, look and dynamism. Also, this house holds complex family interactions and memories. The set decoration, colour and patterns follow a maximalist eclectic style that portray this house as a timeline.
What stylistic choices were made to enhance the story’s themes?
The use of unfolding and disclosures help reveal these complex family bonds by bringing notes of fantasy that align with the dollhouse concept and follow the story’s transitions and twists.
Behind the scenes:
Sketches
Building the staircase
Painting the staircase
Building the living room
Building the living room
Building the living room
Floor treatment
Dining and living room
You can view more of Ana’s work on her website and Instagram:
Thanks to the students and staff who built and installed the set, including Head Scenic Artist Lee Funnell and set build crew Stella Chen, Kaitlyn Fernandes, Allison Latondresse, Yena Lee, Galen Leftwich, Emily Nash, Cristian Twist, Helena Ventosa, Hana Yaguchi, Amelia Wagenaar, Hana Yoneyama.
