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So you want my arts job: set designer

If you’re collaborative, highly organised and can balance both technical and creative skills, a career in stage design may be for you, says Ailsa Paterson.
5 Dec 2022 1:08
Richard Watts

Performing Arts

Set designer Ailsa Paterson says a lot of her design process ‘involves cutting cardboard up into smaller bits and gluing it back together’. Image: Supplied.

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Ailsa Paterson is an award-winning costume and set designer for live performance and film. She lives and works on the lands of the Kaurna people (in Australia) and pays respect to elders past, present and emerging.

Paterson has worked extensively as a designer for theatre, opera, dance, cabaret and events. Her work has toured around Australia and to the UK, the US, New Zealand and Asia.

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Richard Watts

Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts

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