THE EVIL TWINS - Space Installation
THE EVIL TWINS
A Haunted House in the Enchanted Forest
Location 1: THE HAUNTED HOUSE - Hackney
The basement of Le Gun's Curiosity Shop, 61 Wilton Way, London.
Be prepared to leave reality at the door as you descend into the sensory trickery that is the home of the Evil Twins. Tea party guests drop to their knees as they crawl through a maze where they encounter the shifting dimensions of the drawing room, library and a secret chamber. Teased with illustrated hint the guests will glimpse photographic fragments of the Evil Twins’ story and their involvement in The Seven Ominous Incidents. Expect to feel intrigued, compelled and a little nervous as you travel through this unusual installation.
Location 2: THE ENCHANTED FORREST - Holloway
Highbury Studios, Hornsey Street, London.
While Hackney shows the claustrophobic interior of the Twins' dwellings this installation suggests the hallucinatory surroundings of The Haunted House. Tea Party guests fleeing the Haunted House can expect to be thrown back into sensory chaos as they are drawn along corridors of unstable vanishing points before being cast out into the Enchanted Forest, still unsure if they are awake or asleep. The Evil Twins will work more of their trickery at a midnight picnic under the Magic Tree; a tree that holds the key to yet more undiscovered domains.
In 2006 Simon Husslein and Container teamed up to build the first Haunted House in Hamburg, Germany. One year on London audiences are invited to experience an updated version: The Evil Twins' domain has grown to incorporate two locations containing amongst other things an enchanted forest, a maze, a magic tree, a secret chamber and a forgotten library.
Simon Husslein and Container are collaborating with photographer Patricia Niven and performance group 1927 to achieve this ambitious project that spans illustration, set design, performance, projections and photography.
www.husslein.net www.containerplus.co.uk www.patricianiven.com www.19-27.co.uk
Entrance to THE ENCHATED FORREST, London. 2007.
Checker Room.
Hallway.
This is the place where unknown
Meets unknown,
Where the seeds of old trees
Have long since grown
Into the enchanted forest –
For that’s where you are,
Where a writer once wrote of tales from afar,
Where from the typed pages
Of one well known story,
Rose evil in double, in giggling glory.
For it was underneath the Magic Tree
That the Evil Twins, they first broke free
And climbed towards a hallowed fate
With which they’d had a life-long date.
Up through the branches
They climbed and glided
Swift as signs
They ne’er collided
Until they broke the verdant canopy
And stood at the summit of their evil destiny.
For there at the tip of those
Luscious leaves,
Was a house, a home
That now just grieves.
For it is haunted
And groans for all it
Was.
For it now just holds ghosts –
No frail memories of love.
Written by Sarah Winman.
The Forest.
Midnight Picnic.
Entrance to THE HAUNTED HOUSE, London. 2007.
Once upon a time
In a land far away,
Stood a crumbling cottage
At the end of a bay.
And there lived a writer
Of lonely intent,
Whose life was now solely an imagined event.
And as night fell
With such blanketed grace,
So she worked at her desk
At a terrible pace.
Clack! Clack! Clack! went the typewriter
Over pages of story,
to find that one tale
That might bring her some glory.
But when she awoke
The following morning,
If only she'd heeded the pitiful warning,
That glared from the pages
Still wet with intention,
For here was a tale
Of her terrible invention:
"The Story of the Evil Twins" it said.
Was the story she wrote 'fore her head touched the bed.
She gasped in fear
As they rose from the page,
As their lives came alive
Like a play on a stage.
"Go Back!" she screamed, but they would not listen,
For life off the page
Was now their mission.
To haunt, to tease,
to cause evil deeds.
"We're out!" they shouted,
"To do as we please!"
The twins had taken over
like a careless disease.
Now, to enter their kingdom
Please drop to your knees.
Written by Sarah Winman.
Seven Ominous Incidents.
Tea Room.
Goggles Room.
Cake Room.
Sherry Room.