Shivani Pinapotu is a spatial thinker and designer interested in how space intersects with story, society and our sense of self.


Her earliest memory of a space was a pillowfort that her aunt had built when she was young. The experience of having a space that fit her and a place to call her own fascinated her beyond measure. She has since then been driven by the impact of empathy, wonder and a story well-told, and always finds herself reaching for these virtues to position herself within a project. Her practice is, therefore, an attempt to humanise the built environment.

She holds an MDes. in Interior Studies from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she concentrated in Exhibition and Narrative Environments, and has extensive experience in architecture, interiors, exhibitions and theatre design across India and the States.

She is presently working at Home Studios, Brooklyn.

Reach out to spinapot@gmail.com or find her on Linkedin, if you have anything in mind!

WORK ︎︎︎





Behind the scenes of the making of the original U.S. Civil war Springfeld Model 1864 Type 2 Rifle

production design

WHITE BOX, written, designed and directed by Sabine Theunissen



WHITE BOX is a poetic and impressionistic distortion of the true story, unraveling the dramatic journey of the three scientists,  and blending it with a bizarre parallel tale of the life of the lost photographs since their emergence. It is also a loving tribute to photography and its capacity to reveal the power, beauty, and fragility of the environment. The resulting piece illuminates, interrogates, and honors scientific exploration, one man’s quest for fame, and the perils of underestimating nature; the combination will add up to an inspiringly confounding evening of music, dance and film. In 2020 working with a remote team and filming performers in South Africa, Director Sabine Theunissen createed a 30-minute stop-motion animation on a scale model of the elaborate set that is at once a compressed version of the story, a dynamic illustration of its novel design and staging, and an innovative short film worthy of presentation in its own right --a playful shadow of this theatrically immersive experience of beauty, hope, and infinity.


Teaming up with one of South Africa’s most prolific and prominent choreographers Gregory Maqoma, WHITE BOX will sit at the intersection of performance, film and visual art; it will unfold like the landscape it depicts. The story- told through projection, dance, and music- hinges on a rediscovered camera and rolls of film that had been buried in the ice for 33 years, whose unearthing revealed the fate of the Polarex expedition. (from THE OFFICE performaing arts + film)


program scenography - live production

team Sabine Theunissen - Catherine Graindorge - Gregory Maqoma - Angelo Moustapha -  Ylva Norin - Felice Ross - Jonas Lundqoist - Thulani Chauke - Fana Tshabala - Andrea Fabi - THE OFFICE performing arts + film - Hyewon Hwang

date November 11 - October 20, 2022

place Brown Arts Institute, Providence, RI

commissioning, directing, photography Brown Arts Institute - THE OFFICE performing arts + film - Orionteatern Stockholm


︎ WHITE BOX, THE OFFICE performing arts + film ︎︎︎
Running on Cargo