Death never makes sense. When her mother died, Kirsty Mitchell created a magical, enchanted world in the woods because it was easier to understand than her painful reality. Through sets and elaborate imagery, she transported herself back to a fairy tale world of her childhood, drawn from memories of the books her mother would read to her as a child.

The Wonderland series took five years to make and another two to complete. Drawing from her past career in fashion design, Kirsty Mitchell spent months handcrafting her character’s costumes and props. She planned each shot down to the smallest detail, including timing the bloom of wildflowers and other seasonal changes of the woodlands surrounding her home in the English countryside.

The Last Door of Autumn

“At first there wasn’t any plan, the pictures were just an escape, a place to block out reality and create a more beautiful existence, far away from the memories of the hospital. However, as the series progressed a narrative was born. Katie, my protagonist for the series inadvertently became my mirror, I began to realise the scenes were subconsciously reflecting whatever stage of grief I was going through at the time and so I chose to embrace it.”

Wonderland is a testament to a daughter’s love for her mother but also of the transformative power of grief. Her images inhabit a feeling of loss and of being lost, the protagonist is looking for signs and answers to questions not fully formed. Where do I go from here?

“I didn’t want to create an artificial happy ending because that is not true to grief, and it wasn’t authentic to how I was feeling and coping.”

“Katie wandered through the seasons encountering characters that represented all these emotions, searching, until eventually she comes across a huge door in the woods which represented a choice, whether to stay in the fantasy or to leave.”

What began as a deeply personal project, carried out with the help of only a small team of models, a makeup artist, and her husband, Wonderland has been exhibited in many different countries and turned into a successful photo book. The feeling of entering in a changed world, beautiful and sad at the same time, has struck a chord with many people.

Kirsty Mitchell

Behind the scenes

“The closing scenes of her exit through the door towards her family home in the snow felt so right. I didn’t want to create an artificial happy ending because that is not true to grief, and it wasn’t authentic to how I was feeling and coping. It was a bittersweet, emotional moment in the silent snow, transformed by the visitation of a lone robin who refused to leave us. In the end it felt truly right, I was tired, I had given everything I had, I was ready.”
But as fate would have it, Wonderland has taken Kirsty Mitchell to new, faraway places. She became a mother soon after the Wonderland project was finished, but shortly after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“It has been seven incredibly difficult years for me, but I’m finally out of treatment and clear. My son Finch is now old enough for me to read him some of the stories that inspired the Wonderland pictures, which is an extraordinary feeling. At night I often lay in his little bed telling him about my mother in the darkness. He has grown to know her and empathise with my grief in such an open and accepting way. Children can surprise you like that, and I love him all the more for it, it feels full circle.”

The Queen's Armada