Inter Faith Week activities

This week is is Inter Faith Week which has the aim of: strengthening good inter faith relations at all levels; increasing awareness of the different and distinct faith communities in the UK, in particular celebrating and building on the contribution which their members make to their neighbourhoods and to wider society; and increasing understanding between people of religious and non-religious beliefs. This year I am having the opportunity to be part of several initiatives/activities that either connect with or are part of Inter Faith Week.

My week began with the opening the online exhibition, Exodus & Exile: Migration Themes in Biblical Images, that I have curated for The Ben Uri Gallery and a related essay entitled Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art.

The exhibition, which is currently Exhibition of the Week, includes a range of Biblical images from the Ben Uri Collection in order to explore migration themes through consideration of the images, the Bible passages which inspired them and the relationship between the two. This is because themes of identity and migration feature significantly in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and images from these Bibles are a substantive element of the Ben Uri Collection.

The combination of images and texts enables a range of different reflections, relationships and disjunctions to be explored. The result is that significant synergies can be found between the ancient texts and current issues. In this way, stories and images which may, at first, appear to be describing or defining specific religious doctrines can be seen to take on a shared applicability by exploring or revealing the challenges and changes bound up in the age-old experience of migration.

My essay Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art is an updated version of an article I originally wrote for Church Times looking at influential works by émigré Jewish artists that were under threat. The article mentions Ervin Bossanyi, Naomi Blake, Ernst Müller-Blensdorf, Hans Feibusch, and George Mayer-Marton, telling stories of the impact of migration on the work and reputations of these artists.

Yesterday, I spent the day at Beauchamps High School and Sixth Form College in Wickford taking part in their Inter Faith Week activities with a group representing Buddhism, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam, and Judaism. We each made presentations and took questions regarding our faiths and beliefs with four different classes in the morning before then taking part in a panel discussion in the afternoon with the whole of the Sixth Form. This was the second time of involvement for me in these activities. It is always a fascinating and interesting day with insights from the other belief representatives and challenging but thoughtful questions from the students.

Today, I am at an Inter Faith Retreat with rabbis and Church of England priests. We are exploring similarities in our chosen vocations as religious leaders to our communities through scriptural encounters and discussions of both our respective histories and current issues. As a result, I have had the pleasure of reconnecting with Rabbi David Hulbert. Together with Imam Dr. Mohammed Fahim, Rabbi David and I led an East London Three Faiths Forum Tour of the Holy Land. My reports from this trip and some of my subsequent talks and sermons can be found here.

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Menachem Creditor - Olam Chesed Yibaneh.

Launch of Fruits of the Spirit - Art from the Heart,

The launch of the virtual exhibition Fruits of the Spirit - Art from the Heart, curated by the Rev Dr Ayla Lepine (2021–22 Ahmanson Fellow in Art and Religion, The National Gallery) and Dr Susanna Avery-Quash, Senior Research Curator (History of Collecting) at the National Gallery was held tonight at The Foundling Museum.

The 'fruits of the Spirit' are a list of nine qualities found in Saint Paul's Letter to the Galatians in the New Testament. They include peace, joy, love, and patience. Fruits of the Spirit – Art from the Heart focuses on these terms in relation to paintings in the National Gallery's collection, from Titian and Rembrandt to Monet and Van Gogh, featured alongside works from UK regional collections. This exciting new digital project opens new doors regarding accessible online arts content and focuses on the nine qualities themselves as ways of amplifying wellbeing for all people, of all faiths or none.

Fruits of the Spirit: Art from the Heart, is an online exhibition and trail, pairing nine paintings from the National Gallery with nine works in public collections across the UK. Visit the online exhibition.

Each pair represents one of the nine ‘Fruit of the Spirit’ – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control – positive attributes outlined in a letter from Saint Paul in the New Testament.

The virtual exhibition is combined with a free digital catalogue of essays. Over twenty authors, including curators, artists and community groups, as well as a new poetry commission by Dr Aviva Dautch, explore the importance of the exhibition’s themes, from love and family life to self-control in relation to climate change. Including words from a Nurse-in-Residence, a care-experienced young person and social justice charities, these essays aim to bring voices not normally heard in gallery catalogues to the fore. Creating links between paintings within and beyond the National Gallery and fostering interactions through different perspectives in communities and cultures encourages new ways of seeing and more open ways of engaging with one another. As a digital exhibition, 'Fruits of the Spirit' is freely accessible to both new and regular visitors from the UK and beyond.

The Foundling Museum’s ‘Fruit’ is Faithfulness and focussing on maternal faith the National Gallery’s The Finding of Moses by Orazio Gentileschi, dating from the early 1630s, has been paired with their Isabella, Duchess of Manchester, 1738, by Andrea Soldi.

In the story of Moses, his birth mother places him in a basket in the river to avoid certain death, demonstrating immense faith that her child will survive. Her faith is rewarded, and the Gentileschi painting depicts the moment of rescue and hope. This maternal faith is also reflected in our portrait of Isabella, Duchess of Manchester, who was instrumental in the formation of the Foundling Hospital. As with Moses, the birth mothers of children given up to the care of the hospital faced heart-breaking decisions that demanded enormous faith and trust.

As part of the collaboration visitors to the Foundling Museum are able to see in person The Finding of Moses painting, attributed to Venetian artist Francesco Zugno, which is on display next to Soldi’s Isabella, Duchess of Manchester on the first floor.

Lizzie Jones, whose painting 'Couple' at Southampton City Art Gallery is paired with 'The Painter;s Daughter with a Cat' by Thomas Gainsborough, was among those present. With a commitment to direct action in different forms involving making connections with people in order to influence and inform change around issues of military violence and harm, she takes painting commissions for public spaces, for charitable organisations and community groups and for special events / private spaces. She has created and is maintaining the Dye Garden at Southampton's Arches studio complex, while utilising those plants and their colour in print and paint. Puppet Back Up sees giant puppets getting involved in live concerns and beginning to turn up - in time - brought to life with the participation of many.

Canterbury Cathedral’s altarpiece, 'Scenes from the Life of Saint Martin of Tours', 1928–33, by Winifred Knights, also features in the exhibition. It is a powerful example of religious art by a British woman of the last century. This painting represents ‘peace’. A young woman who arrived in Kent as a refugee reflected on the painting in relation to this theme and identified a strong connection between the altarpiece and her story of family, uncertainty, and courage. Knights’s painting is paired with Claude Monet’s 'Water-Lilies' from the National Gallery’s collection. Monet described this work, painted during the First World War, as a ‘monument to peace’. In her catalogue essay, Revd Dr Ayla Lepine argues that contemplating sacred and secular art and relating it to people’s lives today can inspire us all to work for peace when it is most urgently needed around the world.

This free virtual exhibition also includes paintings by Jan Van Eyck, Vincent van Gogh, Frank Auerbach, Turner, Titian, Ernst Neuschul, Eugène Delacroix, Ron Stenberg, Orazio Gentileschi, Andrea Soldi and Thomas Gainsborough.

Other participating organisations:
The Bowes Museum
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts
Canterbury Cathedral
The McManus
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery
Ben Uri Gallery & Museum
The Box
Southampton City Art Gallery

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Carleen Anderson - True Spirit.

Fit for a Queen: Symbols and Values of Sovereignty

The National Gallery has recently launched a new virtual exhibition to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Through a selection of 28 of the National Gallery’s paintings, the exhibition focuses on the values of queenship which were spoken about through signs and symbols in her coronation service and which are still of value today. Many of the paintings explore religion in relation to leadership and symbolism in new and innovative ways.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is the longest reigning monarch in British history. She has witnessed many changes of government and has advised no fewer than 14 successive Prime Ministers. This year, she became the first British monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, commemorating 70 years of service.

To mark this unprecedented milestone, the National Gallery has brought together 28 paintings from their collection that shed light on the notion of queenship, including portraits of female rulers from different times and countries as well as images that relate to some of the attributes most frequently associated with female monarchs past and present.

The virtual gallery can be found here: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/virtual-tours/fit-for-a-queen and the exhibition itself is at: https://jubilee.moyosaspaces.com/.

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Songs for School - Our Queen.

Chaiya Art Awards: A different kind of treasure

A different kind of treasure: Winners Exhibition, Affordable Art Fair at the Oxo Gallery

An invitation to revive and refresh our senses. The Chaiya Art Awards is the UK’s largest awards exploring spirituality through the visual arts with a top prize of £10,000, an inclusive competition for artists, whatever their faith or views on God.

From over 700 entries, the 50 visual artists featured in this juried and curated exhibition explore the theme “God is…” and encourage us to look beyond, to discern what cannot be seen and grasp what cannot be described. A liminal space where life's pain and pleasure dissolve, where questions and answers fade into shadow, where the indefinable lies, a treasure waiting to be found.

“Today, in a world full of conflict and shocks, art bears witness to the most precious part of what makes us human … At a time of global disorder, art embraces life.” Christine Macel

'God is …’ a mystery explored through canvas and paper, photographs and video, others cloth and stitch; 3D metalwork and pottery; bronze and stone sculpture; glass and pipework; a movement sensitive robot alongside an interactive sign with sonic sensors.

The panel of five judges, all well respected experts in the arts arena, will be announcing the winner of the top prize of £10,000 along with other prizes. But visitors will also have their say, in voting for public prize of £1,000 from the artwork on display during the exhibition.

EVENT: Chaiya Art Awards 2021, Winners Exhibition, Affordable Art Fair

DATES: Fri 14 May – Sun 23 April 2021
OPEN: 11am – 6pm every day (till 4pm on last day)
VENUE: Gallery@OXO, Oxo Tower Wharf, Bargehouse Street, South Bank, London, SE1 9PH

Entrance is free. Artwork for sale, prices from £50 - £20,000

10% of all artwork sold goes to our Charity partner UNSEEN - working to end human trafficking and modern slavery.

THE EXHIBITION WILL ALSO BE ONLINE SIMULTANEOUSLY from 14-May to 31 July 2021, to allow access from all over the world.

For more information, visit: chaiyaartawards.co.uk

Facebook: @ChaiyaArtAwards
Twitter: @ChaiyaArtAwards
Instagram: chaiyaartawards

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Mica Paris - Mamma Said.