The House of Fairy Tales has flown through time and space and all 15 dimensions to take up residency on the Stanley Picker Gallery Island, as part of a programme of events and exhibitions happening across the Borough of Kingston throughout February and March for Histories in the Making: Celebrating 140 years of Kingston School of Art.
During their residency the Characters, Philosophers and Boffins of this universe-famous space-ship have inspired, cajoled and google-blasted the students of Kingston University into making a series of curious museums and exquisite troves of learning. These are receptacles, coffers and cases of whimsy and miniature worlds, caskets of jewel-bright objects, models and artefact and moving new-streams of fabulous, fascinating ideas and information, surreal and poetic treasures guaranteed to inspire the youngest and the oldest of minds. Each Trove will be a living 3-dimensional mood-board of inspiration and creative innovation: a giant Lilliputian collaboration with a thousand authors.
Let your imagination run riot in The Misplaced Museum! Investigate the clues and the mysteries of the dream world from the sleepwalking detectives at The Somnambulant Detective Bureau, conjured up by the brains of Oliver Wallace, MA History of Art and MA Creative Practice students.
Discover the power of light at the workshop bench of Olaf The Lofty an eccentric inventor, designed by Mark Bayley. Be beguiled by The Mouse House, a living sculpture by artist Dmitri Galitzine, which has travelled in all 15 dimensions the House of Fairy Tales for the past 6 years.
Feast your eyes upon the marvellous automata pieces. With exhibits from Keith Newstead, Ron Ruller, Peter Markey, Fi Hensall and Matt Smith and enter through the secret wardrobe to immerse yourself in the magical crochet world of recycled rubbish, crafted by Anna Kompanients and crochet plastic-eers from Foundation Diploma and BA Fine Art.
The House of Fairy Tales residency was preceded by a ‘Take-Over Day’ where the children of Kingston and beyond descended upon the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture to follow a magical trail around this inside-outside building and its very special Gallery on the island round the back. The culmination of this day of thinking-through-making swarmed, all knowledge, like busy bees, onto the Stanley Picker Gallery Island where the experiment continues for the eight weeks of the exhibition.
The House of Fairy Tales is a National Children’s Arts Charity established in 2006 by Kingston Alumni Gavin Turk and Deborah Curtis to inspire creativity and imagination in children and their families.