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Friday 10 July 2009

Art & spirituality, society & morality

Last night I spoke on the question 'Spirituality - the heartbeat of Art?' at the networking evening organised by commission4mission at St Andrews Leytonstone.

I argued that, despite a reluctance among art critics and tutors to note or engage with religious themes and imagery, there is nevertheless a prevalence of religious themes and imagery to be found in modern and contemporary art. I gave a brief and partial alternative history of modern and contemporary art to illustrate this argument and to suggest that this prevalence of themes and images does suggest that spirituality remains a significant inspiration of art.

A summary of my presentation and those of the other two participants, Rosalind Hore and Mark Lewis, will be posted shortly to the commission4mission webpage.

Next Thursday I am speaking on the question, 'Has society lost sight of morality?' This presentation will be to the East London Three Faiths Forum where my dialogue partner will be Rabbi Alex Chapper of the Ilford Federation Synagogue and a local magistrate. The meeting is on Thursday 16th July at the Ilford Islamic Centre (54-56 Albert Road, Ilford IG1 1HW) at 8.00pm.

At present, I plan to argue firstly that society cannot lose touch with morality as all societies exhibit morality in some form or other. The question is, then, one of the type of morality found within society. I shall argue that the UK has a predominantly consumerist morality and shall seek to contrast this morality with that which characterises effective interfaith dialogue.

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