The multidisciplinary work The Set Up by Evelyn Wh-ell reflects upon the empty promise of escape through self-actualisation, exploring cinematic and narrative genres as imperfect predictive methodologies for navigating one’s way out of one’s current condition. Erected via the text and scenography, the labyrinthine theatrics of detective fiction, horror, and melodrama establish an identity as a trap from which it is impossible to exit. Structured according to the temporal logic of a joke that never reaches its punchline, The Set Up reflects upon an endlessly deferred belief in the improbable as a strategy of trans counterknowledge against normative attempts at revelation.

Evelyn Wh-ell (UK) is an artist, writer and researcher living in Cambridge. Their practice makes use of trans forms and aesthetic strategies, working with parody and humour to explore the ‘traps’ of gendered subjectivity. Their writing has been published by Another Gaze, Art Monthly, Cambridge Literary Review, World Picture Journal, and permeable barrier, and they were a Commissioned Writer for New Contemporaries in 2022.

Premiere: Rupert, 2023 (LT)
Part of Re-Imagine Europe – New Perspectives for Action. Co-funded by the European Union.
This work is available for touring.
For further enquiries, contact: info@rupert.lt