History is fragmented. Perspectives and opinions differ; certain voices censored or even silenced. The Industry advertises its production of Sweet Land, a new immersive opera, as “an opera that erases itself.” The Arrivals come to shore and meet another civilization, the Hosts, and from there, the story splinters. Guided through the L.A. State Historic Park, the audience members were separated into diverging tracks across the space to experience different perspectives of history.

Projection design in Sweet Land is both unique in its technicality as well as its role in the show. The projection is scattered through out the park much like Sweet Land’s audience. And it doesn’t exist at all stations, it appears and disappears like a ghost of history. It opens and ends the story but does not get into the specifics of the story. The audience only sees projections when the whole of them are together, not during their separate tracks. 

In total, 11 projectors were installed throughout the park at unusual spaces and required unique problem solving for the lack of infrastructure at the outdoor venue with very limited budget.

We will discuss how the conceptual approach of the projection design evolved throughout the process of developing a new opera, as well as some of the ‘out-of-the-box’ solutions that were used for installing projectors at unusual spaces.