Harriet Middleton-Baker, a London based artist and photographer, has spent the last two years researching and creating abstract operas questioning everything from power dynamics, feminism and traditional narratives.
Her first work, a feminist sci-fi reimagining of William Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress, led to her breakthrough show, The War Room, an Opera!, a short operetta set in an all-female technocratic boardroom performed at Cell Project Space over the course of two months last year. Often comparing her chosen art form to more contemporary styles of storytelling like music videos and TV series, Middleton-Baker says she enjoys 'the potential for opera to be seriously extreme', often picking apart the genre and using it as a new way to examine themes and concepts. Her next major project, a film piece building on excerpts from The War Room, an Opera!, is still in the making; until its release, Middleton-Baker says she is 'energising' herself towards 'optimism and against destructive unregulated capitalism'.