This is where it opened.

“There is something bad here, growing. Day and night I watch it. Growing. My mother is where it begins.” - Elektra, Sophokles (tr. Anne Carson)

A red cube at the centre. Inside, a child. Outside, a woman trying to clean the stain that will not come out. A wound passed down through generations—unnamed, unchosen, inherited. In a charged, symbolic space, two performers enact a ritual of return and refusal. One enters the red cube, where memory lives. Another peels open the space of the mother: a cube that breathes, ruptures, contains. Together they attempt a cleansing—not to erase, but to expose.

Blending visual performance, poetic text, and feminist ritual, This is where it opened. explores the legacy of maternal pain, the violence beneath love, and the impossible work of healing what was never yours to carry.

About the company…

  • Zihui Jia is a costume designer currently based between London and Guangzhou.

    With a background in Costume for Theatre and Screen, she’s found a way to blend costume design with ideas from performance-making. Her work is inspired by the book Performance Costume: New Perspectives and Methods by Sofia Pantouvaki and Peter McNeil, which opened up new ways of thinking about how costume and performance can grow together.

    Right now, she’s working on the final project for her master’s degree, and planning to take a well-earned break afterward. Once she’s back in China, she’s looking forward to starting something new.

    Zihui is excited about what’s next and believes there’s still so much ahead for her and her work.

    You can see more of her work on Instagram: @h_ui_2001

  • Janset is a London-based performance artist from Turkey whose work explores generational trauma, the maternal body, and the politics of visibility. Using the body as a site of memory and transformation, she creates intimate performances that stage rupture, intimacy, and transformation. Her work moves between disciplines and often invites the audience into charged spaces where personal and collective memory meet.

    Instagram: @janset_

  • I am a performance artist interested in the body, physical performance, and feminist themes. My work focuses on matrilineal trauma, mother-daughter relationships, and the embodied experience of memory and inheritance. Drawing on feminist and psychoanalytic theory, I use symbolic materials—such as red fabric, acts of painting or cleaning, and recorded family dialogue—to explore the tensions between care and control, love and harm. Through intimate, physical performances, I examine how pain and tenderness move through generations, shaping identity and relational dynamics.

    Instagram: @alicekoala2000