Coinciding with the launch of Valdemars Slot as a contemporary arts destination on Saturday 24 May, Chinese artist Rong Bao will transform the iconic tea pavilion into a theatre set. From 2pm, visitors will be asked to queue up and approach The New Pontiff, 2025 to take a bow before the inflated pope.

Hooked at the head by an umbilical power cord, The New Pontiff combines childlike exuberance with witty socio-political critique. The figure nods and bows as if caught in endless ritual, aping religious practice like a marionette. In lining up before the figure, visitors participate in a “collective gesture of reverence, which is both a humorous critique of blind faith and constructed authority,” Bao notes, “while also embracing the beauty of absurdity and the need for connection in an uncertain world.”