Katrin Brack is one of the most important contemporary German stage and costume designers. She studied stage design at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and has since worked for a number of renowned theatres in the German-speaking world.

Her work is characterised by a clear, precise visual language that usually seeks a reference to fine art. Brack knows how to achieve a great and diverse effect with reduced means and materials. She has rightly been described as a maximum minimalist. In the conception of her stage designs, different ideas come together. She looks for associations to concepts and tries to assign materials to certain circumstances. Initial ideas are given form and materially translated. The focus of her work is the creation of a desired atmosphere on stage. The way in which the set is used by the actors evolves during rehearsals; it becomes an actor in the play. According to Brack, the sets need actors and texts to come to life. Brack has received numerous awards for her stage designs and has been voted Stage Designer of the Year several times. In 2017, she was awarded the Golden Lion for her life's work at the Venice Theatre Biennale. In 2019, she received the Hein Heckroth Stage Design Award.

In addition to stage design, she is also an educator, serving as a stage design professor at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts since 2009 and a member of the German Academy of Performing Arts. Katrin Brack's book "Katrin Brack: Bühnenbild/Stages" (2010) has been praised as one of the best stage art publications. The book records many of her pioneering stage designs and brings new possibilities and development directions to contemporary performing arts.

Photo credit : Arno Declair