Dear Mr. Utzon by Rayyane Tabet centred on the on the life of the Danish architect Jørn Utzon who designed the Sydney Opera House, yet was wiped from its history - aside from remaining the namesake for the performance’s location, The Utzon Room inside the House.

 

Following the form of an open letter addressed to the architect on his 100th birthday, Dear Mr. Utzon took audiences on a journey through the House’s marked history to Utzon’s unrealised plan to construct a subterranean theatre at Jeita Grotto, the limestone caves in Lebanon. In this way, Tabet used the lens of global modernist architecture to form links between Australia and his home country of Lebanon.

 

The performance was illustrated through multiple projections of original archival footage, detailing Utzon’s personal life and the development of the House, built on First Nations land, during which many collaborators succumbed to misfortune.

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­­Inspired by an archival image of Utzon at home with his family, for the performance Tabet transformed the Utzon Room into an intimate domestic interior comprising an Utzon-designed lounge suite, objects, models and archival material relating to both the House and the Jeita Grotto project.

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The only physical remnant of the performance were reproduced leaflets, distributed at each venue of the 21st Biennale of Sydney, which read ‘BRING UTZON BACK’. Designed and printed by a group of young architects during the controversy surrounding Utzon’s dismissal from the Opera House project in 1966, the leaflet can be read as a metaphor for, and concise summation of, Tabet’s project. 

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