Kleanthis Kyriakou: A Monument to Strawberry Hill

1 – 30 June 2021
Installation included as part of the general admission to the House.

As part of the Pride Month celebrations this June, Strawberry Hill House has invited architectural designer and drag performer Kleanthis Kyriakou to install his sculpture A Monument to Strawberry Hill in the House.

Kyriakou draws inspiration from Walpole and his creation of Strawberry Hill House and sees the building as a camp act of defiance against the status quo, leading him in turn to create a towering monument that pays homage to the queer mythologies of Strawberry Hill House and its creator.

According to Kyriakou: “Strawberry Hill has been preserved as a cultural edifice of the past, yet stripped from its queer narrative. So, by queering some of Strawberry Hill’s Gothic elements, my monument seeks to revive its memory as a safe space for gender ambiguity.”

Explaining where the installation is located in the House, Kleanthis said: “A Monument to Strawberry Hill will be positioned inside the Robert Adam designed Round Room. The sculpture will allow visitors to walk around it and interact with the piece from various angles, following the very architecture of the room. Once dominated by famous works of art by Baroque masters, the Round Room now lies empty. Instead, it is characterised by a colourful stained-glass bay window, added during the 19th-century. I chose to hide the bay window in its entirety, and work with artificial light in order to cast shadows throughout the room and create a sensory environment reminiscent of the Gothic cathedrals that Horace once encountered in his travels to Italy.”