Peeping In is a Winter and Christmas themed visual installation designed to be viewed by peeping through the Manor House ground floor 16th century windows revealing two magical scenes.
In the main house room we see a classic scene from Christmas night. The seats are unoccupied, but the fire is still alight. It’s late and everyone has gone to bed. Candles glow and a decorated tree stands to one side. A cold blue light enters the space revealing the silhouettes of some strange and sinister visitors present in the darkness. Who are they? What are they doing here? The lights begin to reveal the visitors are a friendly rag-tag bunch of Santa’s helpers delivering presents. Inspired by Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas and modelled by local students, the characters will have a quirky familiarity to them.
Moving on to peep through the windows of the heritage room will reveal a magical snowscape made of hundreds of paper snowflakes, lit and gently moving to give the impression of falling snow. As we peep through the windows the lighting changes transforming the snowscape from bright and cold to magically glowing. Hidden within the snowscape the eagle-eyed viewer may spot one of the characters from the Christmas night scene. The snowscape can be viewed from 3 sides with one of the windows revealing the Manor House within the Manor House. A scale model of the Manor House itself, lit-up within the snowscape scene.
There is also running a competition to see who can guess how many snowflakes are in the heritage room. The winner will receive a £20 voucher from either The Art Shop or Games Crusade, both independent shops in Ilkley. The winner will be announced in early January 2021. Details of how you can post your answer can be found on the Manor House website and on all our social media posts about Peeping In.
