Wicked Game
A new art installation will mark the 450th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth I’s 19-day visit to Kenilworth Castle. The temporary artwork by acclaimed contemporary artist, Lindsey Mendick, will go on display in the Great Hall from 8th July to 31st October 2025. The installation will explore a new perspective on Queen Elizabeth I’s relationship with her courtier and long-term suitor Robert Dudley, and her strategies for maintaining authority from the epicentre of a Tudor power struggle.
Artist spotlight
Lindsey Mendick is an acclaimed British artist known for her multimedia installations that transform personal and historical stories into larger-than-life sculptures and installations filled with humour, horror, and feminist revisionism.
“Women’s histories have often been written by those in power, by those they threaten and by those who need their tale to be a cautionary one. For the artwork at Kenilworth, I will re-examine the events of Elizabeth’s 19 day visit, from the perspective of a female gaze,” – Lindsey Mendick.
Artistic Concept
Mendick’s sculptural installation subverts the cryptic performances presented to Elizabeth I during her Kenilworth visit, including the Station of Sibilla, where ten prophetesses declared her fate to her. The installation brings together a group of Sibyls (among them women from Greek mythology, and Elizabeth’s mother Anne Boleyn), to issue warnings to Elizabeth that reference the power struggles and battles of wits of the Tudor court.
Mendick’s artwork for Kenilworth Castle and Elizabethan Gardens will build upon her 2022 exhibition at Carl Freedman Gallery, Off With Her Head. This exhibition took the story of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I’s mother, as a starting point to explore the vilification of powerful women throughout history, from Medusa and Lady Jane Grey to Meghan Markle and Janet Jackson. In Lindsey’s work she weaves seemingly unrelated threads together to broaden our understanding of women’s history.
Explore our Creative Programme
Our Creative Programme brings unique artistic interventions to our sites in the form of contemporary visual art, theatre, literature, dance and other creative art forms that bring England’s stories to life.
The programme commissions artists, often in partnership with organisations, to produce creative works that draw inspiration from our iconic sites and collections and encourage engagement with heritage and history in new and thought-provoking ways.
Learn more about the Programme