Street Requiem

On Thursday Sept 20 at 8pm in St Cuthbert's Parish Church Edinburgh, ‘Sing The World’ will be presenting the Edinburgh premiere of the award winning STREET REQUIEM, In memory of all those who have died nameless, homeless or innocent on streets around the globe.featuring singers from Australia, USA and Scotland and The Highland Divas from the USA in support of the Grassmarket's Project Choir!

BOOK ONLINE NOW AT: www.trybooking.com/XHSQ

Earlier the same day is Bill Viola & the art of contemplation: a HeartEdge church & culture seminar, Thursday 20 September, 2.00 – 5.30pm, The Parish Church of St Cuthbert, 5 Lothian Road, Edinburgh EH1 2EP. 

St Cuthbert's is currently showing Bill Viola's 'Three Women' (http://www.st-cuthberts.net/info/viola2.pdf) and this seminar has been organised as the final event that the church is hosting relating to the installation.

The seminar will focus on:

• approaches to curating exhibitions in churches (Revd Matthew Askey, Chaplain Southwell Minster); 
• Bill Viola's church-located installations (Laura Moffatt, Director Art + Christianity); and 
• art as contemplative or meditative practice (Alexander de Cadenet, artist, and Revd Jonathan Evens, Associate Vicar St Martin-in-the-Fields). 

Register for free tickets at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bill-viola-the-art-of-contemplation-tickets-48161881484.

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Street Requiem - Ubi Caritas.

Bill Viola: Three Women & The Journey to St Paul's

HeartEdge member St Cuthbert’s Church in Edinburgh (Kirk of the Castle Rock and Princes St Gardens) is currently home to an outstanding video art installation by the internationally respected American artist Bill Viola. The piece is ‘Three Women (2008)', which has most recently been on display in the Grand Palais, Paris and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and is now installed in Edinburgh until 1st September.

'Three Women (2008)' is part of the Transfigurations series by Viola, and his wife and close collaborator, Kira Perov. Transfiguration is generally defined as “an exalting, glorifying, or spiritual change.” In this work, the mother and her daughters enact a transfiguration when they choose to pass through the threshold of water and briefly enter an illuminated realm. By exploring such universal human experiences as spirituality, birth, and death, Viola’s videos communicate to a wide audience, allowing viewers to engage with the work in their own personal ways.

St Cuthbert's also held the Scottish premiere of the new feature length documentary Bill Viola: The Road to St Paul's at an event last Sunday where Simon Groom, the Director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, chaired a discussion with the director and producer, Gerald Fox.

Bill Viola: The Road to St Paul's is a powerful, moving portrait of the world's most influential video artist and his wife and close collaborator, Kira Perov. It is an up-close documentation of their 12-year odyssey to create two permanent video installations for St. Paul's Cathedral. Martyrs (2014) and its companion piece, Mary (2016), symbolise some of the profound mysteries of human existence. One is concerned with comfort and creation, the other with suffering and sacrifice. This film follows Viola's remarkable story of producing, filming and realising the first art commission of its kind to ever be installed in one Britain's most famous religious spaces.

The BAFTA and Grierson Award winning British director and producer Gerald Fox takes the audience on a fascinating journey through the spiritual oeuvre of this innovative, ground breaking artist. The film ranges across the deserted landscapes and deserts of California as Viola builds his epic works for St Paul's, to the streets of Paris and London as Fox looks back at the art and career of this seminal artist, who, since the early 1970s, has taken video art to a new level of acceptance in contemporary art. 

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Van Morrison - Contemplation Rose.

Artistic responses to St Stephen Walbrook

Within our new website for St Stephen Walbrook we are collecting a series of artistic responses to this Wren masterpiece which is complemented by the modern art of Henry Moore and Patrick Heron. These can all be found in the Gallery section of the site.

Paul Raftery and Dan Lowe's time-lapse video of St Stephen Walbrook is filmed in black and white and is a meditative piece that explores the tranquil, domed space with its sculptural altar by Henry Moore. It was shot over three days using timelapse footage captured on DSLR cameras and incorporating motion control, with a bespoke soundtrack by George McLeod. The film received its premiere at Anise Gallery in an exhibition of photography and film based on themes found in the Sacred Geometries. The film encompasses the three aspects of Sacred Geometries seamlessly - mathematics, nature and spirituality.

Daniel Bourke is undertaking a digital residency with St Stephen Walbrook re-creating the building as a virtual environment. He has made an initial video as one of his initial imaginative responses to the space. His work can be viewed at http://danielbourke.com/.

Quintetta at St Stephen Walbrook Church is a drawing made by Trevor Mill while listening to the fantastic brass quintet during a magic lunchtime at St Stephen Walbrook.

In the context of our recent Crucifixions: Francis Bacon exhibition, Rupert Loydell read poetry inspired by the work of Francis Bacon and also by the annunciation. The experience inspired him to write a prose poem 'Faint Echoes' based on that event, which also included a lecture on 'The crucifixion in modern art'.

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Belle & Sebastian - I Want The World To Stop.

God Movie Project

There is a God Movie Project premiere night in Chelmsford on the evening of Saturday 22nd November. There will probably be three new movies, and the main feature is called Out of Little Things, Big Things Grow.

The movie trailer is posted on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNlSFYs4qpw (Preview).

Doors open at 7.00pm, and the evening will be finished by 8.30pm. The premiere night is in the Cathedral Chapter House.

For more information about God Movie Project please visit the website: http://www.godmovieproject.com/.

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God Movie Project - Out of Little Things, Big Things Grow.