JE. In 2005 you collaborated in a public art project in Leeds called Mene Mene and in your artist’s statement for that project you wrote about the style of Jesus' teaching which: “was the opposite of 'in your face' modern advertising or high pressure evangelism. His teaching was often deliberately whimsical, mysterious and oblique. New Testament scholars refer to it as the 'Messianic Secret'. There was something of the take-it-or-leave-it quality of post-modern communication which Mene Mene attempts to recreate.” Are you attempting to use that feature of Jesus’ teaching generally in your communication or was that something that you specifically wished to highlight through the Mene Mene project?
DH. Mene Mene grew out of my long interest in the style of Jesus’ teaching and the way in which he took that teaching into the public square. Mene Mene was an attempt to replicate in the 21st century, in some way, the sort of impact that Jesus’ teaching would have had when he first spoke it. He would have had no PA system meaning that only a small handful in the crowd would have heard him clearly. Snatches of sentences and stories and sayings would have been passed on through the crowds; like Chinese whispers. Jesus’ communication in streets and marketplaces has a post-modern feel to it. So much of our communication today is through clichés, slogans and sound bites which are juxtaposed with the clamour of our everyday lives.
JE. Could you say a little about the way in which the Mene Mene collaboration with Pippa Hale and Marketing Strategist Stuart Tarbuck came about?
DH. Stuart was a member of the congregation at St George’s Leeds where I was Rector and Pippa Hale was a freelance artist in Leeds and a Christian. They were both students together at Leeds College of Art and Design. I shared my idea with them and together we shaped and reshaped it until we had thirteen texts for display on hoardings, bus shelters and so on in Leeds Town Centre. It was an attempt to do something not dissimilar to graffiti but done in a variety of different media and with the public walking past, noticing or not noticing. We did what we could to make each saying a talking point and deliberately mixed affirming texts with challenging ones.
DH. Mene Mene grew out of my long interest in the style of Jesus’ teaching and the way in which he took that teaching into the public square. Mene Mene was an attempt to replicate in the 21st century, in some way, the sort of impact that Jesus’ teaching would have had when he first spoke it. He would have had no PA system meaning that only a small handful in the crowd would have heard him clearly. Snatches of sentences and stories and sayings would have been passed on through the crowds; like Chinese whispers. Jesus’ communication in streets and marketplaces has a post-modern feel to it. So much of our communication today is through clichés, slogans and sound bites which are juxtaposed with the clamour of our everyday lives.
JE. Could you say a little about the way in which the Mene Mene collaboration with Pippa Hale and Marketing Strategist Stuart Tarbuck came about?
DH. Stuart was a member of the congregation at St George’s Leeds where I was Rector and Pippa Hale was a freelance artist in Leeds and a Christian. They were both students together at Leeds College of Art and Design. I shared my idea with them and together we shaped and reshaped it until we had thirteen texts for display on hoardings, bus shelters and so on in Leeds Town Centre. It was an attempt to do something not dissimilar to graffiti but done in a variety of different media and with the public walking past, noticing or not noticing. We did what we could to make each saying a talking point and deliberately mixed affirming texts with challenging ones.
JE. Mene Mene saw a series of texts being abstracted from their original Biblical context and filtered throughout the city in a variety of formats; from high-profile banners and adverts on bus shelters to more intimate sayings on bench plaques and shop windows. What was the impact for people of seeing Biblical texts in such places?
DH. Inevitably this was hard to measure. There was considerable interest from Leeds City Council and three of our installations have been kept as permanent features in the City. The Yorkshire Evening Post highlighted the project; demonstrating that religious themes can be newsworthy. The project also attracted popular and artistic interest.
We had hoped to hold a photographic exhibition of the installations with people interacting with them and also to hold seminars. That didn’t happen but there was interest in a website and these ideas gave us the feeling that a project like this could be replicated elsewhere and in a way that enabled discussion about the texts and their relevance to contemporary life.
JE. Was Mene Mene a one-off for you or do you have ideas for other public art projects?
DH. There is more scope for us to be able to develop this particular project. Our original plans were more ambitious than we were able to realise. The project has scope for being re-run and developed in other locations.
We believe the project is an important statement because society has rejected so much of formal religion and yet, at the same time, is longing for greater spiritual fulfilment. I am fascinated by biblical phrases that are still in common use in our language such as, ‘shake the dust’ or ‘salt of the earth’. Very few now know where these sayings come from. We deliberately wanted the project to be a series of art installations in their own right but, at the same time as with the whole genre of religious paintings, they couldn’t help but also be a testimony to biblical faith.
The project also has an important message for the Church which uses these texts week after week. So much of the impact of the sayings of Jesus have been domesticated and emasculated by only being used in Church when, originally, they were spoken in the public realm. To encounter the words of Jesus at the hairdressers challenges us to take our faith into our everyday lives; not just to lock it up in Church. There is a double impact and, at its best, that would be understood by both the Art and Christian communities.
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Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal.
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