The Ball Is in Her Court: Cristina Schek Unveils First Museum-Scale Installation at Wimbledon Museum

LONDON - EntSun -- For two weeks, Wimbledon has watched a tennis ball travel across Centre Court. Cristina Schek's has come to rest somewhere else.

Nestled among velvet, lace and the suffrage colours of purple, white and green, it rests within Her Court, Schek's first museum-scale mixed-media installation, presented at Wimbledon Museum as part of the Young Masters exhibition project Her Court: The Role Wimbledon Played in the Suffragette Movement.

While The Championships celebrate sporting excellence, Her Court tells another Wimbledon story: one shaped by women who challenged authority, claimed public space and refused to remain silent.

Selected through the Young Masters Art Prize Open Call, the installation marks an important development in Schek's practice. Moving beyond photography for the first time, it brings together image, textile, sculpture, sound and historical research, transforming a nineteenth-century Carver chair into a symbolic seat of women's memory, visibility and resistance.

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At its centre is a 150-year-old Carver chair, traditionally associated with the head of the household. Draped in custom-printed velvet and a ceremonial sash, it becomes a vessel for layered histories. Printed lace portraits honour Wimbledon suffragette Rose Lamartine Yates and Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, while imagery based on the Holloway Prison Brooch held in Wimbledon Museum's collection connects the work directly to local history. A vintage-style radio hidden beneath the seat plays an original spoken-word sound work.

The installation also draws on the shared colours of Wimbledon and the Suffragette movement. Purple, white and green, familiar throughout The Championships, become a visual bridge between the town's sporting identity and its history of political courage.

The project was selected by a distinguished panel including Helen Pankhurst CBE, convenor of Centenary Action and great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst; Pamela Greenwood, Curator of Wimbledon Museum; Yasmin Jones-Henry; Sabine Taal; Sarah Jane Moon; and journalist and art critic Liz Hoggard.

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Her Court was inspired by the repeated command "Heads down. Stay down. Brace for impact" in Sully: Miracle on the Hudson. Schek connected this institutional language with the commands historically directed at women to remain seated, silent and unseen. The installation turns that instruction inside out.

Alongside the installation, Schek presents The Levitation Series: three archival pigment prints titled Before Flight, Mid-Air and After Flight. Together, they extend the work's central metaphor: every act of freedom has three moments.

Exhibition:
Her Court: The Role Wimbledon Played in the Suffragette Movement
Wimbledon Museum, Norman Plastow Gallery
2 to 11 July 2026

https://www.cristinaschek.co.uk/her-court