Between: March 2020

Tuesday 31 March 2020

HeartEdge: March Mailer

The March Mailer from HeartEdge is a slightly plumper, Covid-19 edition this month. Read it by clicking here.

What a difference a month makes. With the spread of Covid 19, our mailer finds many of us in lockdown, routines upturned, imagining alternative futures to those from just a month ago.

The pandemic presents huge challenges for life, vocation and mission, even as many of us find ourselves in impossible contradictions - how to express compassion while maintaining social distancing? Ways to 'do church' and renew congregations, as crisis piles up - redundancy, bereavement and loss. How to grow community, respond to need, as we self isolate? How will business survive - what will our commercial activity look like locally as economies tank? How will culture flourish as artists struggle ever more precariously? Even as we confront our own fears about the virus.

Central to HeartEdge is a belief that Kingdom communities are built on wisdom and faith found in exile and rejection. Our default is church and our cultural, charitable and commercial projects nourished from a place of exile, abandonment and adversity. And here we all are.

In our context of lockdown, quarantine and exile, a rapidly shifting global pandemic and a static front room, kitchen-office or one-bed flat.Here, our emphasis turns to making connections, sharing insight and growing solidarity online.

We've had a few Zoom workshops (we're getting used to it). 100 of you joined the HeartEdge Practitioners page on Facebook. We share frustrations, find encouragement, be listened to and find resource.

Following an online workshop last week one Church-of-England vicar wrote: "As the only priest in the parish here, it feels like having some colleagues... It was just so helpful to sit with others, with uncertainty, to reflect together... in a space that I didn't have to hold, plan, prepare for, know all the answers... I could participate in, be nourished by. Just thank you."

Here's to more of this solidarity and usefulness.

Normal service is unlikely to be resumed. So, we are all working out the implications and changes together. We are trying new things and using social media, and our website to engage, equip and resource in this changed landscape. Plus our regular mailer, a slightly plumper, Covid-19 edition this month. Lockdown and our emerging way of life will remain a theme.

Let us know ideas or topics you want covered and we'll get onto it. Got articles or blogs to share? Be in touch via the website.

In the midst of these strange days, we hope you will make contact, share insight, find solace and join in.

The HeartEdge Team

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Sixpence None The Richer - Down And Out Of Time.

Poem: A second Adam lifted up

This poem is based on today's reading from the Hebrew Scripture - Numbers 21.4-9:

Fatal snake bite inflicted in a garden;
serum spreading through the human
body, poison inflaming man
to be a wolf to man - vampiric
predator normalizing evil, unthinkable
terror routinely inflicted by militant
ignorance, the disease of legion.

Brazen serpent on a pole, innocent victim,
scapegoat, a second Adam lifted up. Venom
taken into God initiates immune system response;
antibodies - taken intravenously - bind and
neutralize. The form and flowers of evil
assumed, embraced, transformed
as antivenom, for the purposes of healing.

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Carleen Anderson - Leopards in the Temple.

Saturday 28 March 2020

Artlyst: Art And Faith - A Time For Seeing

My latest article for Artlyst reflects on the possibilities that lockdown provides for contemplation through art:

'Works of art create their own space for contemplation and come alive when they are contemplated; firstly by the artist in their creation and secondly in their viewing by those who come to look. Art galleries are, therefore, places of contemplation and are generally constructed to facilitate this purpose, i.e. as minimalist white cubes containing little that will distract the viewer from the art ...

Whether we see connections or disjunctions between art and faith, this would seem to be a time for seeing – for insight – whether creating or contemplating. How will the art world create cells of contemplation now the galleries are closed and how will the cells we create teach us everything we need to know?'

My other Artlyst pieces are:

Interviews:

Articles:

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The Blind Boys of Alabama (featuring Justin Vernon) - Every Grain Of Sand.

Windows on the world (271)

London, 2020

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Bob Dylan - Murder Most Foul.

Friday 27 March 2020

God hears our cries, understands our needs and is with us

Our readings this morning (Psalm 102, Exodus 6.2-13 and Hebrews 10.26-end) provide three different responses to trouble and difficulty. In the reading from Exodus we hear of people so broken in their spirits by the cruelty of slavery that they cannot hear the message of redemption. In the Psalm we hear a prayer of complaint about the trouble and difficulty that the Psalmist is experiencing and in the Letter to the Hebrews we hear of people who show compassion towards others in the midst of enduring their own suffering.

It would be easy to turn these into a hierarchy of responses; a kind of version of good, better, best that may be closer to bad, better and best. Yet, these are all stories of responses from God’s people; and in the stories all experience God’s presence alongside them. The people of Israel are rescued from slavery regardless of whether they can believe it is to happen or not. The Psalmist who anxiously prays, ‘O my God, do not take me in the midst of my days’ ends that same prayer with the statement that ‘The children of your servants shall continue, and their descendants shall be established in your sight.’ Those receiving the Letter to the Hebrews read that after they have endured their suffering, they will receive what was promised.

In differing ways God meets each in their troubles suggesting that we are not dealing with a case of bad, better and best but instead relating to a God who truly understands who we are and the differing ways in which we respond to trouble and difficulty. Years of slavery would break many, if not most of us, in our spirits. God understands that reality and hears the groans of those who are broken by abuse and oppression. All of us are likely to have been in same place as the Psalmist; of railing at God for the unfairness of life. I read a post the other night from a friend expressing the heartbreak of all the ways in which our current constraints were impacting their family. It was absolutely right that that person expressed their feelings and God is big enough to take it. As the Psalmist experienced, God doesn’t criticise complaint. Complaint means we are in conversation and relationship with God. In situations, like that of the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews and its readers, where we can have that kind of confidence in God then endurance in ourselves and compassion towards others also becomes possible.

We may each empathise with a different reading and response this morning in our own response to the trouble and difficulty that we all face at this time. Whatever our response these readings assure us that God hears our cries, understands our needs and is with us however we react and respond.

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Mark Heard - Strong Hand Of Love.

Wednesday 25 March 2020

The desert in the city: Sabbath

Here's my reflection on Sabbath for tonight's Lent Course session at St Martin-in-the-Fields, based on Richard Carter's book 'The city is my monastery':

‘Living God’s future now’ will be the title for the next HeartEdge conference, but it is also a very effective description of what Sabbath is all about.

Discussions about the Sabbath often centre around moralistic laws and arguments over what a person should or should not be able to do either the Jewish Sabbath or on Sundays in the Christian tradition. Those of you who are my age or older will recall what Sundays were like before the introduction of Sunday trading in 1994. Sunday’s then commonly began with church worship, followed by roast lunch with the family and time at home together. Some people now miss the fact that Sunday is little different to other days in the week and the enforced slow down and battery recharge that the old Sundays had. For some the introduction of Sunday trading has eroded family time with a consequent deleterious effect on society. Others remember detesting Sundays as everything was either closed or seriously curtailed and think it's much better now with everything open and little curtailment. A French novelist in the 1950s had a retired British Army officer character declare that: ‘If England has not been invaded since 1066, it is because foreigners dread having to spend a Sunday there.’

Such debates about ways to keep a particular day are ultimately distractions from the deeper meaning of Sabbath. In tonight’s Word from the Edge (Hebrews 4. 1-10) we hear repeatedly the assertion that the promise of entering God’s rest is still open, it remains open for some to enter God’s rest and that a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews is saying that the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian practice of gathering for worship on Sunday are no more than stages on the way to the real Sabbath which will be experienced in heaven. They are rehearsals for the reality that we will experience then and that is why we can talk about seeking to live God’s future now.

In order to understand how to really live Sabbath as a rehearsal for the reality of heaven, we need to understand key characteristics of heaven itself. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews highlights particularly the idea that those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labours as God did from his.

In his writings about being with, Sam Wells has introduced us to the four categories of: being with, being for, doing for and doing with. He has challenged us and others with the thought that we spend much of our time, effort, energy and activism on doing things for or being for others, instead of being with others. When we are being for or doing things for others, we are in problem solving mode because there are things that we think we can fix and it is our activity that will provide or contribute to the solution. Heaven challenges our propensity to do and be for others because in heaven there is nothing to fix. In heaven God wipes every tear from our eyes, death is no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more. In heaven there is no being for or doing there is just being with. We cease from our labours as God did from his and simply enjoy God, each other, the world around us and ourselves for who we are.

We prepare for that reality, as Sam says, by learning to live with everybody now and receive their unexpected gifts with imagination and gratitude in recognition that these are the people with whom we’ll be spending eternity, lucky and blessed as we all are to be there. So, we’d best use these earthly years as a time for getting in the mood.

That means that Sabbath moments are primarily those times of appreciation, revelation and understanding towards God, others, creation and ourselves. ‘The City is my monastery’ is a book that gets us in the mood for heaven by taking us deeper into moments of realisation and wonder. Richard Carter writes that 'Rest is given to us as the culmination of creation’ and that the ‘whole of creation moves towards this time of Sabbath, and our lives have no meaning simply as cycles of survival without this arrival at the place of wonder and rest.’ The rest that is ultimately the culmination of creation is that which we will experience in heaven. Sabbath is our anticipation of that experience in the here and now.

‘Creation is not complete,’ he writes, ‘until God rests on the seventh day and contemplates all creation.’ Therefore, 'God blesses time’ and ‘consecrates it as holy.’ The whole of creation is moving towards this time of Sabbath, ‘and our lives have no meaning simply as cycles of survival without this arrival at the place of wonder and rest.'

‘When we rest, we imitate God - we enter into the rhythm of God's time,' but, more than that, 'if Sabbath is God's time, it does not end in the keeping of the Sabbath - the Sabbath enters into all our time.’ ‘When we keep Sabbath, everything we do can be infused with that sense of God's presence.'

He describes a day on holiday in Kefalonia where he pays attention to every moment of the day – the bread he buys from the bakery, the person who serves him, the wrapping in which it comes, the feel and taste of it. Later in the day, he writes, ‘I sat on the beach and watched people playing in the sea … I swam, ate bread and ripe tomatoes, and these actions were like a prayer.'

The poet Mary Oliver wrote that ‘Attention without feeling is only a report.’ To fully feel life course through us we must befriend our own attention, that ‘intentional, unapologetic discriminator.’ The philosopher, Simone Weil wrote that: ‘Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’

That is true Sabbath - not a particular day or a particular set of actions (helpful as those can be) – but absolute unmixed attention presupposing faith and love. This is a style of prayer originally practised by the Celtic saints in this country and passed down the generations in Gaelic regions, in prayers said while undertaking daily tasks. In more recent years a renewal of interest in Celtic Christianity has revived this style of prayer for many.

Richard writes in ‘The city is my monastery’ that this is possible even in the midst of trouble, difficulty and challenge. He writes of time spent in hospital and says, 'It's sometimes only when we are a little stripped down, like this in your hospital night-gown, and tubes coming out of your arm, that God’s presence is once again uncovered.' He then tells of a conversation with a homeless man who was coming regularly to Morning Prayer:

‘Have you always been so faithful in your prayers?’ I asked him. ‘No,’ he said, ‘only when I am in trouble.’

‘Where did you learn to pray?’ He is silent for a moment. And then he tells me quietly: ‘In prison that’s when I realized I needed him most.’

‘Well,’ said Richard, ‘I learnt to pray again in hospital.’

I wonder whether, as with Richard and that homeless man, our current troubles – this enforced Sabbath - could be a moment in which we learn to pray again living God’s future now by practicing faith, love and thankfulness through prayerful attention. There is an unattributed poem circulating currently on facebook which suggests this might be so:

For years our land has groaned beneath the grind
Of work, work, work, of pounding feet, of churn;
For years we stopped our ears and would not mind
The gentle voice that urged us all to turn
From endless slog and strain that warps and rends
The sinews of the Spirit, toward rest:
The Sabbath's breathing wisdom God intends
For human flourishing and the land's best.
Now cafes rest, deserted and the shops,
The bank, the bustle, bargain, building, bar,
The tube's hot haggling hustle: it all stops.
Forced into stillness, now we breathe, we are.
Such tragic loss of love, of breath, to prove
How much we need to rest, to breathe, to love.

Open my heart that I might contemplate your presence in everyone and everything you have made; all that is good, all that is beautiful and all that is true. May wonder and awe at your goodness draw me closer to you and lead me to a sense of eternity now. Amen.

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Bruce Cockburn - No Footprints.

Tuesday 24 March 2020

Sermon Preparation workshop

HeartEdge is currently offering a weekly online workshop live with Revd Dr Sam Wells and Revd Sally Hitchiner which may be of interest to church practitioners.

Every Tuesday at 4.30pm there is a live Facebook preaching workshop focusing on the forthcoming Sunday's gospel.

In today's workshop Sam suggested, "This is a great passage for this Sunday... We are in a Lenten quarantine..."

"Our congregations think about death all the time if we're not preaching about death we're not scratching where they are itching... Nobody ever talks about it... Both of the main readings are about resurrection... "

This Sunday is about feeling grief and lament rather than 'buck up', cheer up. Watch the workshop in full here.

At the first HeartEdge sermon workshop on our Facebook page, Sam and Sally discussed the lectionary readings for Sunday 22 March.

Those who joined them from around the world posed questions that included:

Has Covid-19 revealed that our perception that we were in control in the world was an illusion, before this crisis?
What is the difference of writing for people to read and hear on-line rather than in a church building?
How does discussion feed in to the preparation for those preaching on the theme of Mothering Sunday?

Those who joined the workshop online said:

'Thank you for this wisdom.'
'Such an encouragement to be finding creative ways of connecting. So helpful to share our experiences in this way.'
'Great to have your wisdom. Lots of food for thought about how we can share the Word of God in these challenging times. Thank you.'

View the first workshop discussion here and join back here next week for the next workshop.

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Bob Dylan - Hard Times Come Again No More.

Saturday 21 March 2020

HeartEdge online workshops

HeartEdge is offering two weekly online workshops live with Revd Dr Sam Wells which may be of interest to church practitioners.

Every Tuesday at 4.30pm there will be a live Facebook preaching workshop focusing on the forthcoming Sunday's gospel. The first online sermon workshop for the HeartEdge community took place today on the HeartEdge facebook page last Tuesday. Sam Wells and Sally Hitchiner discussed the lectionary readings for tomorrow. See the first in the series here.

Every Wednesday at 4.30pm on Zoom there will be a Community of Practitioners workshop. This is an opportunity for incumbents and other leaders of HeartEdge churches to meet together to reflect on issues relating to congregational renewal through commerce, culture and compassion. We will read together the book 'A Future Bigger than the Past Catalysing Kingdom Communities' and support one another virtually in these unprecedented times. Message us (jonathan.evens@smitf.org) if you want to take part.

If you want to join HeartEdge visit: www.heartedge.org.

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St Martin's Voices - Gloria.

Windows on the world (270)

London, 2020

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Lou Reed - Heavenly Arms.

Slow Art: James Turell & Andy Warhol

The final chapter of Arden Reed’s 2017 book Slow Art: The Experience of Looking, Sacred Images to James Turrell compares and contrasts the work of Turrell and Andy Warhol in order to establish whether they are, respectively, ‘the Angel and Demon of Slow Art.’ It is of interest, therefore, that the exhibition of new works by Turrell at Pace Gallery overlapped briefly with the Warhol retrospective at Tate Modern, as this, too, enabled the opportunity to compare and contrast the work of both.

Slow art is structured to slow the viewer in order that greater attention is paid to the artwork generating a contemplative state. Reed argues therefore that ‘slow art is not a thing but an experience, an ongoing conversation between artwork and spectator.’ For Reed, the work of Turrell encapsulates slow art par excellence, while, for many, the perception of Warhol’s art and practice is the antithesis; being focused on ephemeral consumables – the instant and immediate. Reed, though, is aware of the way in which such stereotypes of Warhol’s art, as fast art, sell his actual practice short. Therefore, the overlapping of the Turrell and Warhol exhibitions in London at this time provide an opportunity to revisit the contrasts between the two, as made by Reed.

Turrell’s recent Constellation works, three of which are currently at Pace Gallery, are culminations of his lifelong pursuit of an art of light, space, and time. Presented in site-specific chambers, the works feature elliptical and circular shapes with a frosted glass surface animated by an array of technically advanced LED lights, which are mounted to a wall and generated by computer programming. With a run time of several hours, the programmes run on a loop that is imperceptible to the viewer generating light changes that are subtle and hypnotic, one colour morphing into the next.

The Constellation works generate what the artist has called ‘spaces within space.’ His luminous portals are instruments for altering our perception prompting a transcendental experience; gazing into them, as Oliver Shultz, Curatorial Director, Pace Gallery, notes, ‘results in the slow dissolution of the boundaries of the surrounding room, enveloping the viewer in the radiance of pure colour.’ That experience is not immediate, but is realised as the viewer settles in to the experience within a computer programmed loop running for hours, not minutes.

Turrell is, therefore, an artist of duration for whom ‘experiencing is the object’ and whose installations enable us to ‘perceive ourselves perceiving.’ He creates theatres of perception in which light shows are performed. Reed writes that this is like ‘watching a play in which little happens – one by Samuel Beckett, say – we sit (or stand, or lie down) and look at a stage where Turrell makes “light shows” – makes light show.’

In this way, he ritualizes looking by asking us to submit to the art and enter the experience. He says, ‘I don’t think I ask too much. I ask you to wait.’ Again, ‘I’m a slow guy. I like slow planes … In a way that’s true with art, too. Things that require more time give back more. I think it’s okay to take time. It seems more direct actually.’

Sleep, made over several nights in summer and autumn 1963 with a 16mm camera and shown at the start of the Tate’s retrospective, is a clear demonstration of Warhol as an artist of duration; as with Turrell, a slow artist. The film shows 22 close-ups of the poet John Giorno, who was briefly Warhol’s lover, as he sleeps in the nude. Warhol shot around 50 reels of film for Sleep, each one lasting only three minutes. He edited them to fashion a movie without movement. The final version repeats many scenes and lasts over five hours. It is projected in slow motion, giving a dream-like feel. Giorno said that Warhol made the movie Sleep ‘into an abstract painting: the body of a man as a field of light and shadow.’

Reed notes that the pacing and length of a work like Sleep ‘call to mind meditative practices.’ He quotes Jonas Mekas reflecting on Warhol’s use of cinema:

‘Film is transported to a plane that is outside the suspense, outside the plot, outside the climaxes … We study, watch, contemplate, listen – not so much for the ‘big actions’ but for the small words, intonations, colors of voices, colors of words … We begin to realize that we have never, really, seen haircutting, or eating,’ because ‘we watch a Warhol movie with no hurry. The first thing he does is to stop us from running.’

Mekas brings us to a second element of Warhol’s practice as a slow artist, which is to enable us to stop and see the fast, ephemeral or mundane aspects of our existence as though for the first time. Warhol said that ‘Pop artists did images that anybody walking down Broadway could recognize in a split second – comics, picnic tables, men’s trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles – all the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried so hard not to notice at all.’ Artists notice things that others don’t and bring those things to our attention. So, while Pop art images could be recognized in a split second, they were not intended to be viewed in a split second. Instead, they enable us to realize that we have never really seen comics, picnic tables, men’s trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles etc. because we had only previously recognized them in a split second without paying them the attention that is their due.

Eugene McCarraher noted, in The Enchantments of Mammon, that Warhol said, ‘“Pop Art is a way of liking things,” a celebration of those “great modern things” that comprise the humble matter of everyday life – a realm where, in Orthodox tradition, the divine always manifests itself sacramentally.’ This aspect of Warhol’s art was immediately apparent to Sister Corita Kent on a visit in 1962 to the Ferus Gallery in LA to see Warhol’s breakthrough exhibition of Campbell’s Soup Cans. ‘Coming home,’ she said, ‘you saw everything like Andy Warhol.’ As a result, Kent found inspiration in signs and advertising for vibrant screen-printed banners and posters that provided an opportunity to show the sacred in the most mundane.

The Tate Retrospective explores the extent to which themes of faith recur throughout Warhol’s life, including concluding the exhibition with his vast 10-metre wide canvas Sixty Last Suppers created in 1986, a few months before the artist died in his sleep while recovering from gall bladder surgery. This poignant meditation on faith, death, immortality and the afterlife, depicts six rows of ten silkscreened images, each a black-and-white reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic mural The Last Supper depicting Christ’s last meal with his disciples before the crucifixion. A copy of the image had hung in the Warhola family kitchen as Warhol was growing up. Warhol noted, ‘It’s a good picture … It’s something you see all the time. You don’t think about it.’ To make people see it and think about it, Warhol reproduced it 60 times. Thereby, he also evoked the re-enactment of the Last Supper that takes place during every Mass.

Like Warhol wanting us to stop and really see, Turrell is also concerned to take away the distance between ‘quotidian and spiritual,’ ‘beholder and beheld,’ in order to ‘bring the cosmos down’ in order that we call our everyday existence ‘a spiritual plane.’ His Quaker experience of ‘going to greet the light’ is, as Adam Gopnik has argued, to see that ‘the mystic’s white light and ecstasies are not dim apprehensions of another realm but experiences as real and as open to investigation as sleeping, eating and breathing.’

James Turrell, Pace Gallery, until 27 March 2020
Andy Warhol, Tate Modern, until 6 September 2020

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Velvet Underground & Nico - Sunday Morning.

Tuesday 17 March 2020

Online sermon workshop

The first online sermon workshop for the HeartEdge community took place today on the HeartEdge facebook page. Sam Wells and Sally Hitchiner discussed the lectionary readings for Sunday.

Those who joined them from around the world posed questions that included:

Has it revealed that our perception that things were in control in the world was an illusion before this crisis?
Any thoughts on the difference of writing for people to read and hear on-line rather than in a church building?
Any thoughts on how this discussion might feed in to the preparation o those preaching on the theme of Mothering Sunday?

Those who joined the workshop online said:

'Light shining.'
'Thank you for this wisdom.'
'Such an encouragement to be finding creative ways of connecting. So helpful to share our experiences in this way.'
'Great to have your wisdom. Lots of food for thought about how we can share the Word of God in these challenging times. Thank you.'

View today's workshop discussion here and please do join us at https://www.facebook.com/theHeartEdge/ next week for the next workshop.

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Mark Heard - Treasure Of The Broken Land.

Saturday 14 March 2020

Exhibitions update

Icons: Worship and Adoration at the Kunsthalle Bremen examined how the concept of the icon unites aspects of the sacred, worship and the idea of transcendence. It invited visitors to experience iconic art works from nine centuries in a new and intense way. Works by Caspar David Friedrich, Vincent van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Mark Rothko, Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, Niki de Saint Phalle, Isa Genzken, Andreas Gursky and Kehinde Wiley were complemented by everyday icons – from consumer brands to icons of popular culture such as Marilyn Monroe, Beyoncé and YouTube stars. An interpretation of the traditional notion of the icon in art was juxtaposed with the proliferation of icons in everyday life transforming the museum into a place of contemplation and reflection.

Eva Fischer-Hausdorf, curator of modern and contemporary art at Kunsthalle Bremen, said the exhibition examined 'how the concept of the icon unites aspects of worship, the sacred, and the idea of transcendence.' It focused 'on the exploration of the spiritual, mystical, and emotional power of art—and how the qualities of traditional icons continue to live on in the spiritual presence and auratic power of many modern and contemporary works of art.'

The Oude Kerk in Amsterdam is presenting Poems for Earthlings, an extensive and site-specific installation by Argentinian artist Adrián Villar Rojas. It is his first solo show in the Netherlands. The site-specific installation is the result of historical research and numerous visits to the Oude Kerk.

Villar Rojas creates deeply engaging environments that invite visitors to experience the work as explorers. This installation is constituted of a soundtrack, sandbags and chandeliers in their wooden boxes creating a path inside the church itself, no longer allowing visitors to discover the entire 36,000 sq ft. The Argentinian artist composed eight hours of audiotape for the installation and also took complete daylight out of the church, leaving only eerie but peaceful chandeliers spread out through the church’s pathways. Viewers are in a dark bunker or protected area—sandbags give that impression—supposedly designed to shelter us and to preserve our dearest “things.”

In creating the installation the artist says he was 'amazed by how advanced is the secularization process in the Netherlands' meaning that 'the surviving “parishioners,” be them Catholics or Protestants, have to share a same sacred space—Oude Kerk—to keep their religion alive, as if they were those first Christians practising their rituals in a cave, hidden from the Romans, far from the cities. Now, these Amsterdam pilgrims are somehow forced to permanently negotiate with secular agents, as “art” itself, that knock their sacred door defying once and again their tolerance and ability to survive in a Godless environment.'

At the same time he also says that 'Everything that happens -and has ever happened- in a church is a great poem for earthlings.'

Building upon the strong foundations and experiences of the international series Art Stations of the Cross initiated by Aaron Rosen and Catriona Laing in 2016, in 2020 the project lands in Deventer, one of the oldest and best preserved (Hanseatic) cities of the Netherlands.

Every step you take in the picturesque city of Deventer and every work of art you observe remind you how vulnerable you are. Injustice, desolation and war are of all times. Suffering is inevitable. Yet there are always people who make an effort to work towards peace, justice and compassion.

For this edition, curator Anikó Ouweneel (co-curator of the 2019 Amsterdam edition) and Deventer initiator Arent Weevers (artist of station 8 in the 2019 edition), designed another complex multi-venue route with works that run the gamut of artistic media.

This art pilgrimage brings the visitor to cultural, historical, social and religious organizations that formed and form this cultural and intellectual center in the province of Overijssel. At every stop the traditional station of the cross are looked at in a new way, through the interaction of the work of art with the location where passion, enthusiasm and commitment for each other are visible in the local community today. The route relates to the immaterial religious heritage of walking the stations in the time of Lent. The artworks relate to universal themes characterizing the stations and refer to our times and/or the history of the city.

Until April 26, an exhibition with drawings and paintings by Pierre Van Humbeeck and Maria Piron runs in the Basilica of Koekelberg. That artist couple thought about the renewal of Christian art after the First World War. The exhibition draws from their archive, which is kept in KADOC.

Pierre Van Humbeeck (1891-1964) and Maria Piron (1888-1969) settled in Leuven in 1926 and firmly established themselves there. Their work - drawing as well as graphics, painting as photography and even ceramics - is fully in line with the artistic developments of the twentieth century and testifies to a new and open mind. The artists' studio also grew into a center of renewed Christian spirituality. Both maintained contacts with prominent religious, including the Leuven abbey Keizersberg, artists and writers. In 1939 they founded the movement Art et Louange. In that context, the couple regularly organized lectures and conferences on art and religion.

In the exhibition 'Maria and Pierre Van Humbeeck-Piron', organized by the Friends of Van Humbeeck-Piron and the Leuven Historical Society, the curators Emma Van Briel and Ramon Kenis show paintings, pastels and drawings of the couple, as well as contemporaries such as Alfred Delaunois, Frans Nackaerts, Jacob Smits and Anto Carte. Van Briel is worried that Piron and Van Humbeeck are about 'to be forgotten' because 'they are difficult to classify' in a specific genre and therefore could 'disappear between the folds of the isms that the art world' values.

"Your face, Lord, do I seek" is a special exhibition at Pope Benedict House showing works by the Leipzig painter, draftsman and graphic artist Michael Triegel. Pope Benedict House is the birthplace of Pope em. Benedict XVI and seeks to make the biography of Benedict XVI. accessible. Triegel became known as the painter of two portraits of Pope Benedict XVI. The two paintings are displayed in the Pope Benedict Institute in Regensburg and in the German Embassy at the Holy See in Rome.

Triegel has made a name for himself as a painter of sacred art. Working with Pope Benedict XVI and his Jesus books also led him to devote himself to the Christian faith. The exhibition of his works is under the title "Your face, Lord, do I seek". This psalm verse, which Pope Benedict also preceded his Jesus trilogy, has become life-relevant for Triegel. The special exhibition "Your face, Lord, do I seek" can be seen from April 19, 2020, the 15th anniversary of the election of Pope Benedict, until October 4, 2020.

Triegel explains, 'For a long time ... I sensed that it had to be good not have control over everything yourself, not to decide everything yourself. I wanted there to be something beyond myself. That is why I started to draw Biblical topics. That is also why I was very happy to be allowed to make a portrait of Pope Benedict. There was a great longing behind that ...

the Jesuit priest of the Catholic student community here in Leipzig asked me if I wanted to take part in Spiritual Exercises. I immediately said yes. The plans was to study and meditate on selected texts from the Bible for thirty days. That grabbed me. At the risk of sounding pathetic now: I found that the faith rushed from my head to my heart. That was also an epiphany, but not as I had expected ... I then decided that I was ready to be baptised.' 'I was baptised in the Easter vigil at the Dresdner Hofkirche.'

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The Innocence Mission - We Don't Know How To Say Why.

Windows on the world (269)

London, 2020

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The Secret Sisters - Carry Me.

Friday 13 March 2020

Sabbatical Art Pilgrimage: Latest ArtWay report

My latest Church of the Month report for ArtWay focuses on Metz Cathedral:

'Nicknamed “God’s Lantern,” Metz Cathedral in Lorraine, France, is renowned for its vast expanse of stained glass—covering 6,496 square meters, i.e. over twice as much as Rouen and three times as much as Chartres. The amount is impressive, but so too is its variety. It dates from the thirteenth century all the way through to the 1960s ...

The cathedral offers visitors a simple but effective leaflet, Parcours spiritual, that identifies a prayerful route around the cathedral, highlighting sixteen of its most important aspects, including its modern glass. At each of these points in the cathedral, information and a prayer can be found, encouraging visitors to be not simply tourists but worshipers as well. Some argue that this approach, like the information provided on wall cards in museum exhibitions, might direct viewers to see the artwork from one perspective alone. However, this does not have to be the case, as viewers often take that perspective as a starting point for then seeing others. Curators have found that providing no way into an artwork can leave viewers unable to begin to engage with the artwork at all.'

This Church of the Month report follows on from others about Aylesford Priory, Canterbury Cathedral, Chapel of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Hem, Chelmsford Cathedral, Churches in Little Walsingham, Coventry Cathedral, Église de Saint-Paul à Grange-Canal, Eton College Chapel, Lumen, Notre Dame du Léman, Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce, Plateau d’Assy,R omont, Sint Martinuskerk Latem, St Aidan of Lindisfarne, St Alban Romford, St. Andrew Bobola Polish RC Church, St. Margaret’s Church, Ditchling, and Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, St Mary the Virgin, Downe, and St Paul Goodmayes, as well as earlier reports of visits to sites associated with Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Antoni Gaudi and Hen r i Matisse.

Other of writings for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Church Times can be found here. Those for Artlyst are here and those for Art+Christianity are here.

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The Westies - Everything Is All I Want For You.

HeartEdge in Brussels

Azariah France-Williams has written a reflection on the recent HeartEdge weekend in Brussels. His full reflection can be read here. In it he says:

'We were based at Holy Trinity in Brussels, where Paul Volijk had invited several churches of the region to send representatives to gather and consider HeartEdge for their setting. Jonathan delivered a presentation which was undoing old formulas as much as it was creating head and heart space for other approaches. Approaches where people are fundamentally beautiful assets, not burdensome activities, where commerce is one of God’s ways of founding and furnishing God’s own home within the wider world. A minister called Scott Rennie gave examples from his own context in Aberdeen on how this ideology could be expressed.

The full discussion and desire to flood the room with resonant stories demonstrated Jonathan and Scott had hit the right notes. And talking about notes St Martin’s Voices arrived late morning to whisk the company away with Great Sacred Music, an evening concert, and bolstering the church choir on the Sunday morning. I loved the weekend. Jonathan preached a message on Sunday which was simple but not easy. He urged us to take seriously ‘that we were enough.’ There is so much striving and little arriving with much of Christianity. Yet Jonathan was saying that on the first Sunday of Lent ‘we were enough’ Jesus identity of ‘enoughness’ meant the temptations could not snare him. As he was full of love, so he was able to give from abundance to those in the margins. He had a full Heart so could live on the Edge.'

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Sufjan Stevens - The Transfiguration.

Wednesday 11 March 2020

What can I do for you?

Here is the reflection I shared in the Choral Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields today:

HeartEdge is the international, ecumenical movement for renewal of the Church initiated by St Martin in the Fields. We began HeartEdge with a membership fee but found that that led to church committees joining thinking what do we get out of this and is it value for money instead of a mindset of wanting to support the renewal of the Church by thinking what they can contribute. We have since changed the way in which churches and others join.

In our Gospel reading (Matthew 20. 17 – 26), James, John and their mother were all thinking of what they could get out of the movement that Jesus began. What they wanted was prestige and power by being elevated over all the other disciples to what they thought of as the position of influence at the right hand of Christ. Jesus turned their thinking about what is important and about prestige and power on its head. In the kingdom of God, service; thinking of and care for others is what counts, not personal advancement, position or power. What can I do for you, not what can I do for me!

Significant moments in our lives - such as involvement in the movement for renewal initiated by Jesus - bring our underlying attitudes and understandings into focus and, if we pay attention, can challenge us to change our way of thinking and acting. The current challenge of the coronavirus epidemic is one such moment. The Bishop of St Albans recently offered 4 Golden Rules to add to what he felt was missing from the official advice coming from the Government.

Golden Rule One. Each one of us can think about how we can protect and support our neighbours. So much of the public rhetoric is sowing fear about the danger of other people. So, taking all the official precautions, offer help and reassurance to others – and don’t demonise anyone or any group.

Golden Rule Two: Think about who may be suffering more than me. For those of us who are healthy there is much less to worry about but the elderly, the housebound and those with chronic health conditions may be very anxious.

Golden Rule Three. Don’t give into panic and start hoarding food. There is plenty to go around, so practise the Christian discipline of sharing. Ask your neighbours what they need and do you best to help them get it.

Golden Rule Four. Live today to the full. None of us ever know what the future holds. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6. 25 – 34), Jesus challenged his followers to live each day fully and not be afraid. Every time we are tempted to give in to fear we need to make a conscious choice to respond in trust and openness.

Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, in his statement on the coronavirus outbreak reminds us that: ‘Jesus came among us in the first place, to show us … how to live not simply as collections of individual self-interest, but how to live as the human family of God. That’s why he said love the Lord your God, love your neighbor as yourself. Because in that is hope for all of us to be the human family of God.’ He then quotes several official statements, including the head of the World Health Organization saying, ‘This epidemic can be pushed back, but only with collective, coordinated, and comprehensive approach by us all,’ in order to make the point that ‘In each of those calls, and in the calls of many of our leaders, we have heard again and again, that we are in this together, we can walk through this together, and we will find our way in our life together.’

‘So look out for your neighbors, look out for each other. Look out for yourselves. Listen to those who have knowledge that can help to guide us medically and help to guide us socially. Do everything that we can to do this together, to respond to each other’s needs and to respond to our own needs.’

So, our Gospel passage challenges us as to where we are in relation to these issues? Are we, like James and John, thinking of our reward or prestige and seeking to be privileged over others? Have we, like James and John, brought the values of the world into the kingdom of God and are we trying to follow Jesus for some form of personal gain?

The season of Lent and the coronavirus outbreak are both opportunities for self-reflection on these issues and provide us with the possibility of aligning our thinking, values and deeds with those of Jesus as we become the servants of others; in order that we serve instead of being served and give our lives for the sake of others.

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The Revolutionary Army of The Infant Jesus - Bright Field.

HeartEdge events

Here are details of the next HeartEdge events:

19 March, 2.00-4.30pm ‘Inspired to Follow: Art & the Bible Story’ Mission Model workshop, St Martin-in-the-Fields. An opportunity to experience one of the sessions of ‘Inspired to Follow’ and to learn how to make the most of the resource. Free to HeartEdge partners, £10 for others. Book here.

1 April 2020, Liverpool HeartEdge Day: St Nicholas Parish Church, Liverpool. Exploring mission, sharing ideas, uncovering solutions and finding support, this is an ecumenical day with Sam Wells and guests. Lunch and refreshments. Book here.

29 April, Cornwall HeartEdge Day: St Mary's Penzance. Exploring mission, sharing ideas, uncovering solutions and finding support, this is an ecumenical day with Sam Wells and guests. Lunch and refreshments. Book here.

19 May, 10.00am – 3.30pm, Wessex HeartEdge Day: Christchurch Priory. Exploring mission, sharing ideas, uncovering solutions and finding support, this is an ecumenical day with Sam Wells and guests. Book here.

Wednesday 20 May 2020, 3.00 – 5.00pm. Nazareth Community Workshop: The Nazareth Community was established at St Martin’s in March 2018, now with over sixty members. The workshop will be led by Revd Richard Carter, and is an opportunity to learn about the life of the community, and to consider how it could be applied in your own contexts. Richard is the leader of the Nazareth Community and author of The City is My Monastery: a Contemporary Rule of Life; published by Canterbury Press in 2019. The afternoon will mirror the Saturday morning sharing time, and will begin in the church. The session will include: Welcome and an introduction to the Nazareth Community’s simple way of life; Prayer & silence; Talk; Q&A; Refreshments; Small groups; and Close. Participant are encouraged to stay on for Bread for the World at 6.30pm, an informal Eucharist with St Martin’s Choral Scholars in which the themes of the afternoon will be taken up and deepened in worship. Book here.

21 -22 September - London: HeartEdge Annual Gathering - an exciting smorgasbord of theology, ideas and 'how-to' plus curry, catching up, sharing stories and making connections. Make a weekend of it - from Sunday evening's Nazareth Community gathering to Wednesday visiting projects. Save the date - more details to follow.

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Mumford & Sons - Guiding Light.

Sunday 8 March 2020

Being a blessing

Here's my sermon for Schools Sunday at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Instead of starting at the very beginning, a very good place to start this sermon is with the ending of our service. The prayer of blessing at the end of this service aims to ‘crystallize all that has gone before’ in this service and ‘focus it into a commissioning for all we shall set our hand to once we depart.’ It sends us out to be a blessing to others by making ‘the whole world a Eucharist.’ Being a blessing, that’s what I’d like to explore with you today; first in worship, second in one person who expresses it well today and finally in what it might mean for ourselves, including those of those at school.

In this service God takes us and our offerings – the food, drink and others gifts we bring - and places them in a far larger story than we ever could have imagined by giving them a sacred story and making them sacred actions. As we retell and re-enact what Jesus did at the Last Supper, we also recall what God did to Israel in ‘taking one special people, blessing them, then breaking them in the Exile before giving them as a light to the nations to bring the Gentiles to God.’ ‘In the telling of those stories and the performance of those actions we are transformed into God’s holy people.’ ‘That’s what the regular celebration of the Eucharist is about: God taking an ordinary people and through this story and these actions turning us into the body of Christ.’ When the Eucharist is served, each of us offers all that we uniquely are at the altar and we receive from God everything we need to follow him by being a blessing to others in our daily lives.

St Augustine said: 'You are the Body of Christ. In you and through you the work of the incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken. You are to be blessed, broken and distributed, that you may be the means of grace and vehicles of eternal love.' Based on these thoughts, Sam Wells has explained that: ‘The elements of bread and wine are taken, blessed, broken and shared just as Jesus was taken, blessed, broken and shared. In a similar way the congregation as a whole is taken out of its ordinary pursuits; blessed with the grace and truth of forgiveness and scripture; broken in the disciplines of intercession, peacemaking and food-sharing; and shared with the world in love and service. As the bread and wine are offered, transformed and received, the congregation, and through it the whole creation, is offered, transformed and received.’

We come to be blessed in order that we become a blessing to others. That is the pattern also in today’s Old Testament reading (Genesis 12.1-4a) where we read of God saying to Abraham, ‘I will bless you … so that you will be a blessing … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

We might wonder how one person can become a blessing to all the families of the earth? The answer is, in the same way as Jesus did through the Last Supper. Abraham set out on a journey to the Promised Land which formed the people of God, who were called into being to be a blessing to other nations. In so doing, he gave all who follow after him a path to follow, a story to inhabit, a people to which to belong and a mission to which they are called. The people of Israel followed that path and inhabited that story when they left slavery in Egypt to journey through the wilderness to enter the Promised Land and established themselves there so that, when Solomon was on the throne, other nations came to learn the wisdom of God. Jesus followed that path and inhabited that story when he walked through the valley of the shadow of death to set a banqueting table for all peoples in the mansions of heaven. We become a blessing to others when we take that same story and experience of belonging out with us from church into our daily lives by seeking to make the whole world a Eucharist.

Sam has said that: ‘The mission statement of the church is to make the world a Eucharist. So faithful service means practices that look like worship—those that gather people and form them as one body, that reconcile and open lives to repentance and forgiveness, that proclaim truth and reveal God’s story, that embrace need and unleash gifts, that express thanks and are open to the Holy Spirit, that share food and wash feet.’ ‘It means extending God’s invitation to all, bringing all to repentance and joining in creation’s praise. It means proclaiming the truth of God through the history of the world and the dynamics of the universe and sharing discernment within the silence of God. It means articulating human need and enabling reconciliation. It means restoring a good relationship between humanity and its ecological home, stirring the heart, setting about work in a spirit of thanksgiving, discovering power under the authority of the Spirit, confronting evil with confidence in the sovereignty of God and sharing in the generous economy of God so that nothing is wasted. Thus all the practices of worship become the habits of discipleship.’

That’s the theory and that was the experience of Abraham, Israel and Jesus. Let’s come up-to-date and think for a moment about a similar experience for someone who is proving inspirational to many today. Greta Thunberg was the subject of a giant portrait unveiled on the playing field of a school in West Yorkshire to mark International Women's Day. The 60m long artwork took four days to create and was titled ‘A girl inspiring the world.’ Pupils Hebden Royd Primary School chose the 17-year-old as the woman who had most inspired them saying, ‘We've chosen Greta because she stands up for what she believes.’ She has ‘pioneered a global movement which is so relevant to the area.’

Tabitha Whiting has recounted how Greta Thunberg first learnt about global warming at the age of 8, when her class was shown documentaries about climate change at school. She remembers being more affected than the other students and puts this down to having aspergers and selective mutism. After learning about global warming she couldn’t simply go back to normal, continue with her studies, and think about something else. It profoundly affected her. It affected her so much, that three years later, at the age of 11, she experienced a period of depression. Climate change wasn’t the sole reason for this, but it definitely played a part. She was so deep in her depression that she stopped attending school. Naturally, her parents were incredibly concerned. When they spoke to her about the depression, Greta opened up to them about her climate crisis worries. She gained a sense of release from talking about it. Greta realised that by talking about her worries, she could influence others make a difference. This marked the beginnings of the movement that she has created. Out of her struggle with depression came the spark of activism.

On August 20th 2018 Greta conducted her first school strike. She did not go to school that day, and instead sat down outside the Swedish Parliament. She stayed there for the full length of the school day, posting photos on Twitter and Instagram, and she started to gain traction with a couple of journalists and newspapers coming to see her. The next day, she was back in the same place, striking again. But this time she wasn’t alone. People started joining her on her strike, which took place until the Swedish National Elections on 9 September 2018. She was then asked to make a speech at a People’s Climate March rally, in front of thousands of people. She was determined to speak out about the climate crisis, and that her selective mutism wouldn’t prevent that. She delivered the speech brilliantly, in fluent English. Now, she speaks regularly in front of crowds, politicians, and journalists.

Her school strikes started to go global, with children across the world joining in to make their stand against climate change. On Friday 15 March 2019 a global school strike was called. 1.6 million people took part in the strike globally, from 2,233 cities in 128 countries. It was the biggest single day of climate action that has been seen in history. What started with a single girl sitting outside of the Swedish parliament with a hand-made wooden sign, had become an international movement.

In Greta Thunberg we see one young person following a call that has transformed her life and who is blessing others by addressing a critical social issue and forming an international community. As with Abraham and Jesus, Greta has become a blessing to others by undertaking a journey, creating a story, and forming a community. Our impact may not be as great and may not happen within such a short space of time, yet we too are called to be blessed, broken and distributed, that we may also be the means of grace and vehicles of eternal love.

Although school strikes have been the catalyst for the movement Greta Thunberg has begun, school was the catalyst for her awareness of the climate emergency and schools can be communities that are catalysts for blessing. A Guardian article from the past week explored ways to equip young people to face the challenges of the 21st century saying ‘that the key skills they need to survive and thrive in the 21st century will be emotional intelligence … and the ability to deal with change’. It argued that these ‘are best fostered by an education system that prioritises not traditional academic learning but rather “the four Cs”: critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.’ What is needed the article suggested is ‘a commitment to putting mental and physical wellbeing at the very heart of education’, prioritising mental and physical health, and promoting resilience. That means ‘teaching children to understand their minds and bodies, encouraging them to have contact with nature, helping them to negotiate relationships with others, fostering excellent communication skills, and nurturing creativity.’ Schools, like churches, can be catalysts for communion and creativity. In these ways, they bless that others may be blessed.

Tom Wright says that, ‘Blessing is not primarily about what God promises to do to someone. It is primarily about what God is going to do through someone ... Blessed are the meek, [Jesus says,] for they will inherit the earth: in other words, when God wants to sort out the world, to put it to rights once and for all, he doesn’t send in the tanks, as people often think he should. He sends in the meek; and by the time the high and mighty realise what’s happening, the meek, because they are thinking about people other than themselves, have built hospitals, founded leper colonies, looked after the orphans and widows, and, not least, founded schools, colleges and universities, to supply the world with wise leaders.

What is God going to do through you? How might you be a blessing to others? It’s not a done deal! The people of Israel had to be exiled from the Promised Land before they returned to their vocation to bless others. God came into the world as a human being because humanity was oppressing, rather than blessing, others. Around our world too many nations are building walls and creating hostile environments instead of blessing others. We desperately need churches and schools that will be the catalysts preparing us to be a blessing to others; and worship is the crucible in which such change begins. As St Augustine wrote: 'You are the Body of Christ. In you and through you the work of the incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken. You are to be blessed, broken and distributed, that you may be the means of grace and vehicles of eternal love'; that you may be a blessing.

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Arvo Pärt - The Beatitudes.

Friday 6 March 2020

Windows on the world (268)

London, 2020

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James Taylor and Lowcountry Voices - Shed a Little Light.

Thursday 5 March 2020

Exhibition update

Pace Gallery has a solo exhibition of new works by Light and Space master JamesTurrell at 6 Burlington Gardens. On view until 27 March 2020, the exhibition features three new works from his Constellation series.

Turrell investigates the immateriality of light itself. With these new pieces, Turrell continues his exploration of technological possibilities combined with sensory practices and gradient colours. Presented in site-specific chambers, the works feature elliptical and circular shapes with a frosted glass surface animated by an array of technically advanced LED lights, which are mounted to a wall and generated by computer programming. The light changes are subtle and hypnotic, one colour morphing into the next. The programme runs on a loop that is imperceptible to the viewer, prompting a transcendental experience.

Turrell was raised a Quaker and has come back to being active. He says that being a Quaker influences how he lives his life and what he values. Noting that people tend to relate any work in light to the spiritual, he suggests we greet light in three major ways that aren’t necessarily partitioned:

'There is a psychological aspect, a physical aspect, and a spiritual aspect. In terms of the physical, we drink light as Vitamin D, so it’s literally a food that has a major effect on our well-being. The strong psychological effects of light can readily be felt in particular spaces. One can feel this in Gasworks—it expresses the powerful quality of light. In terms of the spiritual, there are very few religious or spiritual experiences that people don’t use the vocabulary of light to describe.'

Goodman Gallery is presenting Land of Dreams, the UK premiere of Shirin Neshat’s most recent body of work. The Iranian-born New York-based artist has dedicated her practice to progressing understandings of the religious and political forces of power that shapes human existence and has gained a reputation as one of the most significant artists working today.

The exhibition comprises photographic portraits and two video installations. For the first time, both mediums converge into one immersive experience to present a portrait of contemporary America under the Trump administration.

In the first video we follow Simin, an estranged Iranian photographer, who travels through rural America knocking on citizens’ doors to shoot their portraits and to document their dreams. For the second, we enter the clinical dystopian interiors of a bureaucratic Iranian colony housed within the mountains. Here Simin’s portraits and dream documents are logged and analysed by the protagonist alongside fellow Iranians in lab coats.

Combining striking imagery with political satire, the videos evoke a shared humanity among those living under social, political and economic injustice. The series also deepens Neshat’s long- standing interest in the duality between the ephemeral nature of dreams and the tangibility of political issues.

The photographic portraits represent the photographs that the fictional protagonist Simin would have taken during her interviews. They capture the diversity of American identities, including Native Americans, African Americans and Hispanics of varying ages and genders. A number of the portraits are inscribed with hand-written Farsi calligraphy, which annotates the subjects’ dreams or notes their name, place and date of birth.

For the artist, America is on the verge of a paradigm shift: “We are seeing a reshuffling of the cards of power and its players. With the rise of white supremacy and the present threat against immigrants, I now turn my lens towards my host country, America. This new series of work investigates how these changes ultimately rupture individual lives”.

Flowers Gallery has an exhibition of new works by British artist Ishbel Myerscough. Grief, Longing and Love draws together intimate self-portraits and portraits of family to explore a universal journey of loss and longing. Myerscough is recognised for her highly detailed and meticulously observed portrayal of her subject matter, which over the past three decades has primarily included herself, her close friend and fellow artist Chantal Joffe, and their families. In this exhibition, Myerscough combines a focused study of youth and coming-of-age with adult experiences of parenthood, desire and bereavement, evoking the complex cycle of human experience.

In a brief but explosively inventive career, Alina Szapocznikow radically re-conceptualised sculpture as a vehicle for exploring, liberating and declaring bodily experience. ‘To Exalt the Ephemeral’, the title for this exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, comes from the 1972 manifesto that she wrote, summing up her goals and challenges as a sculptor. ‘My gesture is addressed to the human body, ‘that complete erogenous zone,’ to its most vague and ephemeral sensations. I want to exalt the ephemeral in the folds of our body in the traces of our passage.’

The exhibition begins with ‘Noga’ (‘Leg’) her first body cast, ‘Untitled’, the first cast of her mouth. It then moves through the scope of her experiments with different materials: bronze, resin, cement, car parts, polyurethane, and photography. The exhibition displays her interest in Pop Art and Surrealism, as well as her formal investigations of sculpture. described her work at the end: ‘‘Despite everything, I persist in trying to fix in resin the traces of our body: I am convinced that of all the manifestations of the ephemeral, the human body is the most vulnerable, the only source of all joy, all suffering, and all truth.’

In the expressive paintings of Dutch born, Belgian artist Bram Bogart at White Cube Mason's Yard, the focus is on paint as physical matter and the medium’s material possibilities. Primarily an abstract artist, Bogart explored how the ‘script’ of a painting or the ‘non-repetitive element of rhythmical brush strokes’ could imbue abstraction with meaning. During his long career, Bogart immersed himself in the formal concerns of painting, working through numerous stylistic shifts including an early period of figuration, followed by cubist geometric abstraction, gestural abstraction and finally sensually coloured sculptural paintings with heavy accumulations of paint, for which he became widely acclaimed. Through a process of ‘building’ with paint he fused gesture with matter, to produce powerfully physical paintings with a sculptural, three-dimensional presence.

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Anthony D'Amato - Good And Ready.