Kensington Palace has become the Enchanted Palace in a unique multisensory exhibition combining fashion, performance, and dazzling spectacle to reveal Kensington’s magnificent State Apartments in a new light.
Historic Royal Palaces is undertaking a £12 million major project to transform the visitor experience at Kensington Palace by 2012. Whilst improvement works are being carried out, acclaimed UK theatre company WILDWORKS has cast a spell over the palace, creating a mysterious and atmospheric world for visitors to explore, and bringing the hidden stories of the historic royal residence dramatically to life.
In the sumptuous State Apartments, leading fashion designers Vivienne Westwood, William Tempest, Stephen Jones, Boudicca, Aminaka Wilmont and illustrator/set designer Echo Morgan have each created spectacular installations in collaboration with WILDWORKS, taking inspiration from Kensington Palace and the princesses who once lived there - Mary, Anne, Caroline, Charlotte, Victoria, Margaret and Diana. These extraordinary contemporary designs are displayed alongside historic items from the Royal Collection and Kensington Palace’s Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, together with two dresses worn by Diana, Princess of Wales and Princess Margaret.
The complex and mysterious world of the royal court is opened up through dreamlike installations, interactive theatre, intimate storytelling, soundscapes, haunting film projections, and a series of intriguing clues hidden throughout the historic rooms, revealing tales of love and hate, surprise and sadness, secrets and jealousy.
Each room has a powerful story to tell about Kensington Palace’s former royal residents and the life of the court - a world within a world, with its own time and rituals:
• Guided by the whispered voices of servants long gone, visitors make their way into the palace via the private backstairs, and emerge into the splendour of Queen Mary II’s Bedchamber, a luxurious but dark room with a melancholy atmosphere. The room will reflect on royal marriage, birth and the importance of producing a dynastic heir. Queen Mary (reigned 1689-1694) had no children, reportedly a great sadness to her, whilst her sister Anne (later Queen Anne 1702-1714) had fourteen pregnancies but none of her babies survived. Aminaka Wilmont will create ‘a dress of tears’ for this room, based on the ancient tradition of collecting tears during times of mourning.
• The Privy Chamber, an ‘airlock’ between the private and public realms of the royal palace, was a place of masculine power, politics and intrigue, extreme etiquette, flattery and disguises. Milliner Stephen Jones has produced a number of hats for a stunning installation inspired by the historic 18th century busts of great philosophers and scientists, in particular Sir Isaac Newton and his law of motion, evoking themes of the universe, revolution and flights of imagination.
• The King’s Presence Chamber, a small but opulent room in which the monarch came face-to-face with his subjects, received petitions and granted favours. This was a place where cultures collided, where foreign visitors, lower classes and curious characters of the court, would encounter their king. In this room of absolute royal power, visitors are invited to sit on WILDWORKS’ ‘wishing throne’ to record their own desires… what changes would you make if you were king for a day?
• The King’s Grand Staircase is of true fairytale proportions, with its winding chequered stone stairs, and walls and ceilings lavishly painted with a vivid, life-sized depiction of George I’s court. Intriguing and unexpected characters including the King’s Polish page, Turkish servants, Yeomen of the Guard, a giant Scotsman, a hairdresser, a ‘wild boy’, various mistresses, and a portrait of the artist himself, William Kent (1685-1748), all peer down at those who dare to ascend this grandest of staircases. In this dramatic space, Vivienne Westwood displays ‘a dress for a rebellious princess’ inspired by the spirited Princess Charlotte (1796-1817), daughter of King George IV and Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
• The Cupola Room was the principal state room of the palace, and the most lavishly decorated. Its centrepiece is a spectacular clock upon a dais; it once contained a musical box that played specially commissioned melodies by Handel, Corelli and Geminiani. Four great ancient monarchies - Chaldaea, Persia, Macedonia and Rome - are illustrated by the painted scenes on the sides of the clock. Boudicca’s dramatic installation imagines the lavish timepiece as the clockwork driving the palace and the machinations of court life. A soundscape of clocks ticking and chiming will be heard, whilst ‘dresses the colour of time’ circle the room.
• The King’s Gallery, originally built for William III in 1695, features an elaborate wind-dial connected to a wind-vane on the roof so that the King could see which way the wind was blowing, where his navy was likely to be heading, and when the posts might arrive. Inspired by this device, WILDWORKS has created an installation featuring hundreds of toy soldiers and boats campaigning across the floor, echoing the war games played by William and his little nephew in this room.
• The Duchess of Kent’s Dressing Room and Anteroom – believed to have been once used as a royal nursery, these rooms display a number of items of children’s clothing from the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, including a beautiful pair of fur trimmed red boots, Princess Beatrice’s kid gloves and tiny baby shoes belonging to Queen Victoria’s children.
• Queen Victoria’s bedroom - this is the room in which Victoria was sleeping when her uncle King William IV died at Windsor Castle in the middle of the night, and where she awoke to the news that she was to become queen. The installation in this room will represent Victoria’s life changing overnight transformation from young princess to Queen of the United Kingdom. Inspired by Victoria’s new-found freedom and independence as a result of her accession, William Tempest has created an avant-garde interpretation of a period dress that will incorporate origami and produce a trompe l’oeil effect whereby the dress will appear to vanish and merge into its surroundings.
• The King’s Drawing Room – a grand reception room in which Echo Morgan will curate a ‘cabinet of curiosities’ inspired by renowned royal collectors Queen Mary III and Caroline of Ansbach (1683-1737), queen consort of George II. Both were famously keen on acquiring precious, special or intriguing artefacts including paintings, porcelain, exotica, textiles and curiosities. It will feature historic exhibits such as items from Princess Margaret’s shell and coral collection, alongside weird and wonderful contemporary creations. Echo has also created a ‘dress of the world’, in the style of an 18th century court dress, sculpted in paper and decorated with prints of antique maps.
• The Council Chamber - in this historic room where the resident monarchs held their Privy Councils, dresses belonging to Diana, Princess of Wales and Princess Margaret will be displayed in crystal-like cases surrounded by a birch forest. A theme for this room will be the joy of dancing - Diana and Margaret were both patrons of British ballet companies.
• The Queen’s Dining Room – a cosy, intimate room lined with oak panelling, in which William III and Mary II liked to dine in private, often upon fish and beer. Redolent of royal domesticity, a portrait of their housekeeper hangs on the wall.
• The Queen’s Closet – in this claustrophobic oak-panelled room a terrible argument took place between Queen Anne (reigned 1702-1714) and her greatest friend and confidante, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Sarah had become too bold and confident in her position in Anne’s heart and overstepped her authority by trespassing into the private sphere of royal power. They never spoke again. Listen closely and you may still hear their angry voices echoing through the walls…
• The Queen’s Gallery – a spellbinding finale awaits those who have bravely ventured through The Enchanted Palace. WILDWORKS will conjure up the effect of a whirling ballroom through music and film projections. A series of shining mirrors hang on the walls - if you look carefully, you may catch a fleeting glimpse of Kensington’s princesses….
Historic Royal Palaces’ Curator Alexandra Kim comments: “This is an innovative ‘animated exhibition’ set against the backdrop of the magnificent State Apartments, and offers a truly unique opportunity to discover the hidden stories of Kensington Palace. Featuring specially commissioned contemporary fashion installations woven into fascinating tales from the palace’s history, The Enchanted Palace will enable visitors to explore the extraordinary lives of Kensington’s former royal residents.”
WILDWORKS Producer Bill Mitchell adds: “We have found the stories of the palace incredibly inspiring, they’re like true fairy tales - the rebellious princess who was so universally loved that, when she died in childbirth, London ran out of black mourning fabric; the little sickly prince who played peashooters with his uncle, the king; the court that kept a wild feral boy as a pet; the young princess who wept for three days when told she had to marry a man twice her age; the two friends who had a quarrel that caused deaths, changed the fortunes of great families and the map of Europe. It’s such rich material for art and theatre - to be exploring these stories in the rooms where they took place is thrilling.”
Enchanted Palace is inspired by the £12 million major project that will transform the visitor experience at Kensington Palace by improving accessibility, introducing new education and community facilities, reconnecting the palace with the surrounding park through new public gardens, and enabling us to present exciting exhibitions inspired by the palace’s rich past and unique collections. This project, ‘Welcome to Kensington – a palace for everyone’, will be completed by Historic Royal Palaces in June 2012, in time for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics.
