LOOKS like a tourist

LOOKS LIKE A TOURIST is a new, site-specific, large scale choreographic work designed to be presented in public space, specifically iconic tourist destinations.

It brings together 50+ community participants donning inflatable orange suits, for an en masse, visual spectacle exploring the behaviours and impacts of tourism. The work is an exploration into negotiating identity with reference to otherness; relationship to place and belonging. It looks to rewrite a narrative of disconnect from the romanticism of touristic adventures (being a tourist) to the impacts tourists and humans have on our natural and social environments. The orange suits strive to create a position of cultural and demographic anonymity, allowing the wearers to become unidentified, unified strangers, exploring iconic destinations in a touristic and unencumbered way. It creates a liminal space for belonging and not belonging, while concurrently highlighting the inherent nature of tourism as a culture of estrangement and consumption.

Image credits: Jade Ellis