What magical will happen in a room of a princess when bad witch has cast a spell? Will you dare to come to see if there will be a hidden treasure in the end of the rainbow, is the whole thing just an illusion or just a pile of junk collected by a magpie?
Princess installation was my therapeutic work for myself, but mostly for all God Daughters and Sons who live far away from they good (fairy) God Mothers. Installation was not forbidden from queens, good stepmothers, humorous kings and handsome princes, or frogs.
I got a grant from Arts Council of Finland http://www.taiteenkeskustoimikunta.fi/ and I was able to start working on something totally different from light and I was also able to use my other skills starting from painting, renovating and drilling the walls as well as tuning & decorating old furniture to something I dreamed about when I was a small kid.
The Cultural Center for Children http://www.lastenpiipoo.fi/ in Ideapark Lempäälä (Lempäälä is a small place near Tampere) gave me a freedom to transform one of their rooms to a princess cabinet. I painted pink cloudy sky on the walls, wallpapered the other wall with patterns, rigged clothes on the ceiling and decorated the whole place with giant Roses and smaller flowers.
The centerpiece was a Princess dress that created a shelter to hide under the skirt. There was a princess bed with piles of cushions and mattresses, lace linens, a see-through canopy and pea-blankets that were heavy enough to crawl under and to make strange noise. Next to the bed there was a small night table that hold a lot of small frogs in the drawer.
There was a dressing room with golden shoes, dresses and cloves to be worn and tested, and feather boas. A magic mirror where you will see yourself, or then again…something else. A dresser with jewelry, diamonds and porcelain swans, baskets filled with apples, goldfish, glitter animals and ponies, bugs and a golden ball. Then there was a spinning wheel to hypnotize little princesses to eternal sleep…
Everything was to be played with and to touched. There was coloring pencils to color the wallpaper flowers vivid, there was sound scape overall and smooth light changes of incandescent light bulbs to mystical night. And UV-light to make things glow with the sparkling mirror balls in the ceiling.
The installation became hugely popular, and during the 2 months it was erect, there was appr. 4000 visitors. The daycare people said that there was no need to find things to do, the kids found their way; hid all the diamonds or fell asleep in the bed, as normal princesses would do.
The workgroup
idea, production, management, graphic design ~Katja Muttilainen
costume designer ~Tiina Helin
sound designer ~Kristian Ekholm
lights, set, decorations ~Katja Muttilainen
assistent to us all ~Inka Hahto
muttilainen.com 