A profile of the set designer who uses found objects

Marta Solé begins with what a venue already owns. A stack of mismatched chairs, a discarded cabinet or lengths of timber can become the beginning of a set in her studio. For this Figueres-based scenographer, found material is not background decoration; it carries traces of use, movement and memory that give a performance an immediate human scale.

Her attention is less about perfect restoration than careful editing. Solé preserves scratches, faded paint and awkward joins, then hides structural reinforcements where the audience is unlikely to notice them. The result feels assembled rather than impersonating an old room, with every addition revealing how a theatrical world is made.

That approach sits naturally within Figueres a Escena, whose activities extend across drama, dance, music, circus, cinema, opera and family performance. Its home venues, Teatre El Jardí and Sala La Cate, offer sharply different spaces for objects to be read, while workshops, talks and school programmes place design in dialogue with the community.

This profile follows Solé from initial object survey to final rehearsal. It also follows the practical questions behind her practice: where materials come from, how they are altered, what must be tested, and why an ordinary chair can sometimes say more about a character than a painted backdrop.

A background built around reuse

Solé developed her visual vocabulary through work with temporary theatre spaces, where speed, storage and limited budgets shape every decision. Instead of waiting for a perfect object, she draws what is present and identifies the qualities worth retaining. This habit makes early improvisation productive and keeps the design responsive to performers.

Her object lists record more than dimensions. Notes identify noise, weight, previous colour and the way a handle sits in the hand. A kettle can suggest domestic routine; a wheel can signal travel, labour or play. Solé avoids a fixed meaning, allowing the same form to acquire new weight through movement and context.

In the workshop, the chosen pieces are measured, repaired and sometimes deliberately reduced. Cardboard may become a light silhouette, while a solid chest is rebuilt around a rolling frame. Reuse does not mean leaving every object untouched. It means retaining enough history for the audience to feel that the stage has gathered a life.

Reading Figueres through its objects

Figueres provides a dense field of reference: civic interiors, shopfronts, domestic rooms, theatre histories and traces left by successive uses of the town. Solé treats these references as material rather than literal scenery. A doorway found during research may supply the proportion of an entrance, while a local colour becomes the basis for an entire surface treatment.

The work gains a public context through the organisation's venue network. Programming at Teatre El Jardí and Sala La Cate lets the same object idea be tested before large audiences, in smaller rooms and during educational activity. That range matters because an object must work visually, acoustically and physically, whether it appears on a main stage or in a small educational session.

For site-specific work, she begins with the building's routes, gaps and distractions. Where a modern venue offers few scenic walls, thresholds, furniture and light become the architecture. Old fixtures can establish period, but contemporary wiring, signage or safety equipment may become visible marks in the world of the performance.

Materials that survive the stage

Found objects arrive with uncertain histories, so Solé's process includes inspection, cleaning and documentation. Timber is checked for strength, fabric is tested for wear, and surfaces are assessed for slip, flame and paint-transfer risks. The aim is to retain character without turning sentiment into a hazard.

Many pieces conceal new construction. Lightweight marine ply can strengthen a wooden crate; foam and fabric can give an old frame a new profile; concealed castors can make a heavy table mobile. These interventions are modest, but they protect performers, crew and the public during quick changes.

Australian production conditions make the material conversation familiar. Sydney theatre crews may move between harbour-side warehouses and compact city stages, turning compactness into a design discipline. In Brisbane and subtropical Queensland, humidity demands careful sealing and ventilation. Melbourne's salvage dealers, furniture workshops and laneway studios offer a particularly rich market for reclaimed components.

Objects across different performance forms

The vocabulary travels easily between physical theatre, dance, opera and puppetry. A drawer can become a puppet's house, a road or a hiding place. A discarded fan may suggest elegance in one scene and anxiety in another, especially when light turns its shadow into a moving scenic form.

Digital research offers another route into object histories, including the Puppet24 website. Solé values the reminders in such archives that stage images can be built through association and manipulation rather than expensive illusion. She studies how scale, viewpoint and visible mechanics change what an audience accepts as a world.

Her sourcing follows recognisable Australian habits: garage sales, op shops, council clean-ups and demolition salvage. Solé still checks ownership and provenance, especially for components likely to travel. Reuse carries ethical weight when another person's discarded item becomes public scenery, and documenting that journey keeps the process grounded in respect.

An audience makes the final scene

Solé's sets are incomplete until performers and spectators activate them. A chair might support a scene, conceal a quick change or become the object another character notices. She tests these possibilities in rehearsal, allowing use to revise the original drawing without erasing the object's identity.

That openness extends to participation. Through ATEB, Figueres a Escena's theatre school, young designers and performers can examine the same processes used by professionals. A worn box can lead into discussions of texture, status, storytelling and the ethics of reuse, making the studio method accessible beyond specialist theatre training.

The approach also suits the Australian festival circuit. At Adelaide Fringe, a found-object installation can transform a modest room or pop-up venue without assuming a conventional stage. For touring work, designers learn that regional audiences may know entirely different domestic objects, so clear storytelling must coexist with local specificity and adaptable construction.

From survey table to site-specific stage

The forthcoming Figueres site-specific performance feature opens a window into that development process. Solé's early drawings remain deliberately unresolved, while photographs, fabric samples and short object studies accumulate. The eventual design emerges through conversation with performers, technicians and people connected to the site.

A typical sequence moves from mapping to testing. She marks entrances, audience sightlines and practical zones, then assembles provisional arrangements in the room. Rehearsal reveals which discoveries were merely visual and which have dramatic energy. Objects are moved, rebuilt or withdrawn before the final scene takes shape.

For Solé, sustainability is practical and aesthetic rather than a label attached at the end. Reuse changes the design rhythm, shortens some workshop processes and gives a production a layered identity. The objects may be humble, but their combined history gives the stage immediacy: part domestic archive, part performance tool and part record of the people who handled it.

Explore the current programme at Figueres a Escena and discover how theatre, music, dance, cinema and family performances transform the distinctive spaces of Teatre El Jardí and Sala La Cate. Attend a performance, join a workshop or take part in a talk to encounter the creative decisions behind live work in Figueres.

For practical participation, enquire about ATEB courses for children, young people and adults, as well as school holiday activities and community events. Bring a notebook, an open mind and a willingness to see familiar materials in a new light.