WITHOUT SIN Interactive Art Experience to Play Summerhall in August

Reclaiming the rite of confession as a non-judgmental exercise in healing and reflection, Without Sin is an interactive art experience by Dublin-based collective Unqualified Design Studio. The performance brings two participants into bespoke-crafted timber booths, recalling the typology of the traditional confession box.  

The booth uses state-of-the-art technology to create an audio-visual feedback loop that responds to participants' voices. Linked via headphones, participants are guided into conversation using a deck of cards to create a story together. The experience invites audiences to consider how our relationships have evolved in recent years - what's been lost, what we've found, and what it means to live together after being forced to live apart.  

A contemporary confessional for the modern sinner, Without Sin cultivates space for intimate conversation among friends and strangers. 

Without Sin debuted at Another Love Story Festival in August 2022 before playing to sell-out audiences in Dublin Castle for Dublin Fringe Festival. It was nominated for the First Fortnight Award, celebrating artworks that challenge stigma and prejudice about mental health. 

Lead artist and co-creator Shane Sugrue said “Without Sin flips the culture of silence surrounding the Catholic Church in Ireland on its head. Our intention is to reclaim the confessional as a space for reflection and healing, divorced from institutional power, judgement, and shame. The experience invites audiences to consider how we can create a sense of shared meaning in the absence of traditional rituals, and where we might begin to cultivate new spaces for connection in our lives.” 

Unqualified Design Studio is an award-winning arts collective founded in Brisbane, Australia in 2015. Working in the space between architecture, theatre, and technology, they design immersive experiences to blur the boundaries between spectator and performer. UDS emerged from the underground art-activist movements of Brisbane’s Gabba Ward, through collaborations revolving around Hackerspace BNE and BURN Arts Inc. Distinguished by a playfully subversive attitude and finely-tuned aesthetic sensibility, their work has appeared at festivals and events across Australia, including Vivid Sydney, Botanica, Workaround, Modifyre, Heart of Gold, and Burning Seed. Since relocating to Dublin in 2021, UDS projects have included We Used To Play Here, a pop-up venue designed to allow musicians to tour Ireland during the pandemic, shortlisted for the Irish Design Awards; and Without Sin, a ‘contemporary confessional’, part of the Culture Ireland Showcase at Edinburgh Fringe in 2023. 

UDS co-founder & director Shane Sugrue said, “We believe in the power of creative collaboration to foster and sustain healthy minds and healthy communities. We emphasise the means of design over any particular outcome, using it as a critical terrain for understanding how societies structure themselves through social and spatial organisation. We aim to seed new relationships between communities and the places they live, work, and play, transforming the expectations and futures of both.” 

Running Time: 20 mins | Suitable for ages 16+ 

Wheelchair Accessible 

PERFORMANCE DETAILS: 

Architecture/design Shane SugrueArt director Bláthnaid Conroy 

Producer, dramaturg and voiceover Hugh Farrell Sound design Josh Wilkinson 

Fabrication Barry ToddDesign manager Amy Learmonth 

Stage manager Alfredo Lopez  

Summerhall Courtyard, 1 Summerhall, EH9 1PL (Venue 26) 

2 – 27 Aug (not 7, 14 & 21), 20-minute performances 

12pm, 12.20pm, 12.40pm, 1pm, 1.20pm, 1.40pm, 2pm, 2.20pm, 2.40pm, 3pm, 3.20pm, 3.40pm, 4pm, 4.20pm, 4.40pm, 5pm*, 5.20pm*, 5.40pm, 6pm, 6.20pm, 6.40pm, 7pm, 7.20pm, 7.40pm 

*Reserved exclusively for critics, industry, and guests 

www.summerhall.co.uk | 0131 560 1580 

Previews 

8 – 12 JuneCarlow Arts Festival 

1 – 9 JulyClonmel Junction Arts Festival 

26 July – 1 AugustSummerhall Visual Arts Showcase 

Funded by Culture Ireland as part of the Culture Ireland Showcase, the Arts Council of Ireland Agility Award, Dublin Fringe Festival’s Make Space for Art Award, Dublin City Council Project Funding and OPW Heritage Services.

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