
The Sanctuary
- Publisher
- Rim Books
- Year
- 2006
- ISBN
- 9780473106676
- Specifications
- Published in 2006
The Sanctuary is a travelogue of sorts that reveals a range of very different sites. The sequence begins with three frames made in the royal parks of London: the first an exterior stone staircase on a slow incline, with a row of trees running parallel out from the edge of the steps. That is an anchoring image, in a way a declaration of intent — the steps lead up to the brightly regilded memorial erected by Queen Victoria to her husband Prince Albert in Kensington Gardens, and Hipkins has chosen to avoid the money shot of the Victorian Gothic edifice, depicting instead the slow, funereal approach.
In the second we are still in a royal domain, further north-west in Regent's Park, the vast round park designed by John Nash, architect to the crown, with a lake, a canal and a second home for the Prince Regent, surrounded by palatial terraces.