Monster Chetwynd on her Tate Modern installation for kids

Monster Chetwynd is proving to be the saviour of many parents - who are already finding themselves at Wit’s End only a week or two into the school holidays - with her UNIQLO Tate Play Commission at the Tate Modern.

Part of UNIQLO Tate Play, the free programme of commissions and art-inspired activities for all ages, Chetwynd has created three fantastical sets in the Turbine Hall inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s 1975 film adaptation of the Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

The project will invite visitors to explore Chetwynd’s enchanted world and take part in re-imagining scenes from this comic opera, celebrating stagecraft and the magic of theatre – think puppets, costumes, and music.

But none of this stuff comes easy, says the artist, “With it being the summer one, I had to work out how to meet the demands. They kept telling me 1000 people a day would be coming through this! So one important aspect to cope with that many people was to make my work robust enough, and to be meaningful to that many people.”

UNIQLO Tate Play Monster Chetwynd (Tate (Lucy Dawkins))

The idea she began working with alongside the Tate team was a giant board game, where people could move around – but there was no hook until Chetwynd had the brainwave of basing it on the Bergman film.

“I know sounds quite specific and odd, but it really fits, it was a missing ingredient for an interactive approach.”

The project has different islands reflecting different scenes in the film, including where the magic flute helps tames the animals in the wild woods, along with some live dragon taming action. Each section has elements like a silent disco or glove puppets or live performer’s mind, to blow little people’s minds.

“You have a big walrus and tortoise and a bear, and then the last island is being tested by the elements of fire and water, and it's a long walkway where you go down a printed colour floor, through a big arch. You can jump on the stepping stones in between them and find your way through all the adventures.”

Chetwynd is of course an artist who loves to do live action work with audiences. This British artist studied at the Slade School and Royal College of art and utilises performance, video, sculpture and installations to rework folk tales and literature and movies; she was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2012 for her live performance art piece Odd Man Out. She says her experiences have taught her to not hold onto things too tightly, and dictate everything.

“I trust that audiences are fun people and interested,” she says, “And they contribute, so I don't want to be thinking it’s Them and Us, I feel like the audience should be part of it.”

UNIQLO Tate Play Monster Chetwynd (Tate (Lucy Dawkins))

Chetwynd says she also gets a kick out of the unpredictability and defines herself as a “natural risk-taker” and says, “I don’t know if it’s embarrassing to say I’m a free spirit.”

But that crucial artistic willingness to play with chaos, to take big risks, is why her art connects; it is impossible to ignore, often goes to extremes, yet the biggest risk from her point of view – “to trust people” – is what gives it warmth.

She sees her world as a place where high and low culture congregate, she loves Spongebob Squarepants as much as Ingmar Bergman. And in fact The Magic Flute film has a similar appeal.

“It’s a clever period drama, extremely progressive and inclusive, and auto-reflective, but 5 year old children can enjoy it, there’s these funny playful aspects. There's a lot of ludicrously wonderful dancers in animal suits doing roly-polys. I think The Magic Flute is a little bit illogical and bombastic, but you just have to go with it and get swept along with the visuals and the music.”

Fundamentally, the experience is about becoming lost not in Bergman’s world but in Chetwynd’s, and as she talks about why The Magic Flute is important to her, the appeal of this installation at the Tate for families this summer becomes clear;

“I saw a production of Magic Flute when I was a child, and I remember being enamoured with the idea of a protective magical instrument. That you would be in danger or you'd be stressed and you could just play this music and that everything would be protected and you'd be brave.

I just genuinely, as a child, felt very reassured that this could happen. It's obviously supernatural, it’s not real, but at the same time even the thought of it helped me.”

UNIQLO Tate Play: Monster Chetwynd: Thunder, Crackle and Magic is at the Tate Modern until 25 August 2025