About
Haiyan Hester Xue is a set and costume designer working between the UK and China. Her practice seeks to draw out hidden conflict from the seemingly banal aspects of everyday life, creating performance spaces for opera, theatre and live performance that challenge perception and strive to break down bias.
Her fascination with opera and classic texts stems from their resistance to complete translation. They no longer fit neatly into the contemporary world, and it is precisely this dissonance that fuels her work.
Hester trained at an academic fine art high school, graduated from Wimbledon College of Art with a BA(first class) and an MA at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. She recently received the Linbury Prize 2025 as one of 12 recipients.