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Sunday 20 August 2017

Latest Artlyst interview: Revd Paul-Gordon Chandler

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My latest interview for Artlyst is with Revd Paul-Gordon Chandler, CEO and Founder of CARAVAN, whose I AM exhibition ends at St Martin-in-the-Fields today, before moving to Washington, D.C. at the Katzen Arts Center of American University from September 5 – October 22.

In the interview Paul-Gordon says:

'In the midst of the all-too-often widening divides of discord and misapprehension between creeds and cultures, I believe a new movement is needed now more than ever: not of belief, or of cultural or religious unity, but one that creatively builds on what we hold in common. Art allows us to see similarity within difference, offering a mode of reconciliation toward a new vision and experience of coexistence, proactively bringing about a sectarian-free world.

I believe the arts provide new pathways of understanding that transcend borders and differences. CARAVAN’s goal through these “creative demonstrations of dialogue and peacebuilding” is not just more dialogue or greater understanding, but something much deeper, seeing the establishment of intercultural and interreligious friendships.

To us, the aim of art is always higher than art… for it can help us see someone different than ourselves for whom they really are – that they are like us. As Kahlil Gibran, the early 20th-century Lebanese writer, painter, and mystic, and author of The Prophet, so powerfully wrote: “Your neighbour is your other self-dwelling behind a wall. In understanding, all walls shall fall down.”'

My other Artlyst articles are:
Paul-Gordon gave the sermon at the 10.00 am service of St Martin-in-the-Fields today focusing on the message of the I AM exhibition and titled "The Boundary-less Way". His latest book In Search of a Propher: A Spiritual Journey with Kahlil Gibran blends memoir and biography in an 'introductory exploration of poet Kahlil Gibran’s influences, writings, and impact.'

In this book Paul-Gordon:

'traces Gibran’s life from his birth in Lebanon in 1883 and his immigration to the United States in 1895 to his return to the Middle East in 1899 and his encounters with leading artistic figures in Europe before his death in 1931. Each chapter centers on a key work of Gibran’s, with ample excerpts to get a sense of his style and messages. This orderly chronology will help readers fill in details and get a better sense of what events shaped Gibran’s work, including personal losses, World War I, and the dislocation of being an immigrant. Those unfamiliar with the poet’s work will gain solid insights into how and why Gibran sought out universal reconciliation of the religious impulses stemming from his Maronite Catholic upbringing, his Arab identity, and his Western education.'

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