"The Stag with the Star on His Forehead" A community-made installation at Tyntesfield

Photo by Alexia Dobre

For Once Upon a Christmas at Tyntesfield Estate, I had the privilege of creating an installation in the Billiard Room titled The Stag with the Star on His Forehead, together with young people from Next Gen, Refugees Welcome North Somerset, and artist Danish Bashir.

The project began, as my work often does, with spending time in the space itself. I always like to design with a room, not for it. The Billiard Room at Tyntesfield carries a strong presence — heavy, masculine, and historically charged, with deer heads watching from the walls. I wanted to listen to what the space was saying before responding to it.

During my research, I found myself returning to a Romanian poem I’ve known for a long time: “Cerbul cu Stea în Frunte” (The Stag with a Star on His Forehead) by Vasile Militaru, inspired by one of Romania’s oldest folktales.

The story speaks about a magical stag with a shining star on his forehead, sent to bring light into the lives of an elderly couple living deep in the forest. When the stag is wounded by a prince during a hunt, the couple care for him with tenderness and devotion. Later, when the prince returns and wishes to take the stag to his palace, the animal refuses and speaks, explaining that while the prince desires him as an object of beauty and power, the old couple cared for his soul.

The prince leaves transformed, realising that wealth and authority are not enough — compassion, kindness, and love are what give life true meaning.

This story felt uncannily right for the Billiard Room. Surrounded by mounted deer heads, it allowed me to reframe the stag not as a trophy, but as a guardian, a living symbol of gentleness, dignity, and care. It also aligned deeply with themes I’ve always been passionate about: respect for nature, sustainability, and our relationship with the natural world.

After early moodboards, site visits, and conversations with the Tyntesfield team, Super Culture, and Welcome Refs North Somerset, the concept slowly took shape. I imagined the stags watching over the room not with dominance, but with warmth — part of a quiet, starry constellation. I wanted nature to gently take over the space, softening its atmosphere and transforming it into something more welcoming and nurturing.

One of the main ways we did this was by creating terrariums together during community workshops. Making a terrarium is a calm, almost meditative process, and the young people embraced it wholeheartedly. Each terrarium became a tiny living ecosystem — a world made with care, patience, and attention.

There’s also a double symbolism in terrariums that really interests me. As humans, we often try to possess nature, to enclose it in glass, to place boundaries around it for our own enjoyment. But nature doesn’t truly recognise those boundaries — it grows, adapts, and changes in its own time.

Alongside the terrariums, we made vines and hanging plants from paper and wire to further transform the space. Every leaf had its own shape, character, and personality, reflecting the individuality of the people who made them.

The process itself was incredibly rewarding. Working closely with the community, especially through the workshops, reminded me how much kindness, care, patience, and gentleness still exist around us. It genuinely made me feel more optimistic about life. The sessions were always calm and focused — so much so that it was often hard to bring them to an end.

Working with Super Culture for the first time was a wonderful experience, and I’m very grateful for their support throughout the project. Collaborating with Danish Bashir, learning about plants from different parts of the world and seeing his beautiful botanical paintings develop alongside the installation, was also a real joy.

When people explore The Stag with the Star on His Forehead, I hope they feel some of the love and care that went into it. Each terrarium tells its own story, created by young people from Next Gen and Welcome Refs North Somerset. I hope visitors slow down, look closely, and reflect on what nature means to them — and perhaps consider what small steps they might take to cherish, nurture, and protect it.

Fun fact: Did you know that the stag is a symbol of renewal and life’s cycles in almost every culture? Because stags shed and regrow their antlers each year, they appear to die and resurrect with the seasons.