Article

Art

Belief

Culture

1 October 2024

4 min read

How the curious react to creativity in a cathedral

The moved, confused and impressed.

Stuart Haynes

Stuart is communications director for the Diocese of Liverpool.

An art structure of a circular peak sits on the chequered floor of a cathedral.

Monadic Singularity, Anish Kapoor, Liverpool Cathedral.

Rob Battersby.

In the summer of 2024 thousands of visitors came to Liverpool Cathedral and encountered the challenging artwork of celebrated international artist Anish Kapoor. In his first exhibition in Liverpool for over 44 years these works were displayed as part of our centenary celebrations.

They caused a stir. Some were moved, some were confused, many were impressed but there were not many who entered our building that did not have an opinion. As a surprise to us we did not get many questioning why we allowed these pieces into the sacred presence of a cathedral church disrupting the places where worship occurs. Most recognised that this carefully curated exhibition used its artwork to speak to both the building and the pieces themselves.

But we must ask ourselves the question what is the point? What does a vibrant worshipping community such as Liverpool Cathedral stand to gain? Our architecture is impressive, you can’t miss us in the city so why rock the boat by bringing in work from an artist of great renown and great controversy?

The creativity comes through the careful curation of work that speaks to the human condition and ultimately our relationship with God.

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The answer surely lies in two places.

Firstly, there’s the long tradition the church has in using art to tell Jesus’s story to the world. Visit any church and you will likely see a stained-glass window impressively depicting a biblical story like a medieval Banksy. Our worship services can be seen as theatre and performance with choreographed liturgical movements, stunning choral pieces or magnificent contemporary music. The communion prayer acts like a Shakespearian soliloquy retelling the dramatic story of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Art and theatre are intermeshed with the church. Liverpool Cathedral has a number of permanent and temporary art works including work from Elizabeth Frink and our iconic Tracey Emin neon light.

Secondly, like most cathedrals in the modern age Liverpool Cathedral walks the precarious path between commerciality and spirituality. To be sustainable without regular governmental support we must raise substantial money far beyond the reach of the traditional giving of a congregation. We need to be creative, we need to do things, put on events, host exhibitions to reach beyond the bounds of a traditional church audience and connect with a wider public.

Liverpool Cathedral has done this for a number of years, welcoming Luke Jerram’s Museum of the Moon before hosting his Gaia exhibition and then starting a long association with Peter Walker through Peace Doves, Identity and the very popular Light Before Christmas shows. These are not chosen simply to draw in the masses. That would be short-sighted, counterproductive and create the false narrative that cathedrals are more interested in money rather than the worship of God.

In Liverpool our attempts to attract people to these exhibitions are predicated on the notion that whatever a visitor's motivation when they arrive they will encounter us and through us encounter God. Last year 31,000 people saw our Christmas Sound and Light show and as a result that led to greater numbers coming to our Christmas Eve services. People want to make the connection, we need to help them in that.

If a cathedral is to use this work successfully it must help us and our visitors ask searching questions. Sure it is great fun to have a picture with one of these exhibits and most of what we do is deliberately Instagramable. However, the creativity comes through the careful curation of work that speaks to the human condition and ultimately our relationship with God. The museum of the moon and Gaia provoked many interesting conversations and debates about the relationship between science and faith alongside the age-old question of how creation came about.

Peace Doves brought together a post covid community trying to come to terms, both individually and collectively, with the impact of the Lockdown years. In bringing together a piece of community art we were able to focus minds on loss, healing and hope.

It isn’t direct, it isn’t overt but we are also not shy of the fact that we are a cathedral and we do God.

So, to Anish Kapoor. When he was Dean of our cathedral, Justin Welby, challenged us to think of the cathedral as a safe place to do risky things in the service of God. Many could say that hosting an exhibition by Anish Kapoor encapsulates that risk. Challenging, controversial and provocative his work attracts thought and creates a stir. The exhibition stands firmly in our tradition of using art to ask questions. The introduction to the exhibition booklet states that the exhibition encapsulates “the artist’s exploration of the physicality of the human body, the title – Monadic Singularity – reflects the interrelation of human existence and the universe” yet again showing a connection to God and our faith.

It isn’t direct, it isn’t overt but we are also not shy of the fact that we are a cathedral and we do God. People came to the Kapoor exhibition for a multitude of reasons. We had fine art students able to contextualise, theorise and talk sagely about Anish Kapoor and the meaning behind his work, we had families with young children enjoying being able to run around and interact with the works, we had people completely bemused or making wild guesses as to what it all meant. That gives an opening to help us have the conversation about the God that means so much to us and how we interpret this art in the light of our faith.

Cathedrals are places of creativity and need to remain that way. Cathedrals have the opportunity to bring many people through their doors every day. Art can do that and as we have seen since mediaeval times can help us and others understand God and their place in life.

Article

Belief

Comment

Music

28 August 2024

7 min read

10 things I learned from Reading Festival's teenagers

Some uplifting down time.

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

Festival goers, in a cafe tent, make drinks or sit around talking

Time out in the Street Pastors cafe.

Reading Street Pastors.

Last weekend I was at Reading Festival which has become a rite of passage for teenagers from across the UK. Over 105,000 young people turn up to the festival for a weekend of music and mayhem. The typical guest has just received their GCSE results, and heads for Reading, or its twin festival in Leeds, to reflect on what they are going to do next. Headliners this year included artists such as Lana Del Rey, Raye, Prodigy, Beadobee and Liam Gallagher.

My role at the Festival was as a volunteer with Reading Street Pastors who offer a 24-hour safe, warm and dry space. They provide a vital service for these young people, many of whom find their first festival experience very overwhelming. Volunteers serve a ‘Mountain’ of hot chocolate, loaded with cream and marshmallows, or ‘Liquid Death’ – a rebranded aluminium recyclable can of water - along with a friendly face or a listening ear.

I got to spend time over the weekend with hundreds of teenagers who were prepared to spend hours in the safe space because their tents had collapsed, or they had forgotten to bring anything warm to wear, or their phone batteries were dead or because their friends had ditched them. I found our open-ended conversations insightful, and offered me the opportunity to learn a lot about the upcoming generation. Here are some of my observations:

1. They're brilliant

Too often, young people are written off as being uncommunicative, narcissistic, or addicted to social media, but given the chance, they are excellent conversationalists. I thoroughly enjoyed their company; they asked great questions, shared big ideas and offered honest, if surprising, opinions. It was actually a pleasure to spend time with them and I totally recommend it – even, or especially, at 6am in the morning.

2. They appreciate their parents

Of course, most of them wouldn’t tell their parents this, but to me, a total stranger, it appeared that they recognized and appreciated the influence of their parents. This was evident not only in those young people who were missing home and home comforts, but even in their music tastes. The band The Prodigy, who performed on the first night, stem from my era of music, and encompass dance, house, and rave culture. I heard many young people claim they were listening to them, or Liam Gallagher from Oasis, because “my mum/dad love them”. Music is quite a connecting point between generations, it turns out.

3. There’s a diverse range of political engagement

There was a wide range of understanding and interest in politics among these young people. I spoke to many who didn't seem to care about politics, feeling that politicians don't care about them and questioning why they should bother if they can't make a difference. However, I also met many politically connected and aware individuals, some of whom were aspiring to study at universities like Durham, Oxford, or Cambridge. These engaged youths expressed frustration, feeling let down by the political system and believing that politicians don't have their best interests at heart. They were aware of issues like tax increases and broken promises by political parties and expressed a sense of distrust and disillusionment. This disengagement is a significant problem, as it leaves young people vulnerable to populism. Some mentioned that in school elections, more right-wing parties were gaining attention because they seemed to take young people seriously, which I found fascinating and concerning.

4. There’s a lack of hope

I noticed many of the young people I spoke to didn't have a lot of hope for the future. Their huge outlay of £350+ on the weekend appeared to be evidence: many of them expressed resignation that they would never be able to own a house, or were worried about the escalation of global events such as the conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine. While social media is often blamed for creating anxiety in this generation, it seems that global events and mainstream media also play significant roles in shaping their perceptions and values.

Mental health and especially male mental health seem to have turned a corner.

5. There are conflicting views on the environment

Despite numerous advertisements and incentives for people to clean up after themselves at the festival, it was clear that there were two sorts of campers. While some picked up their own litter – and that of those around them, others had no intention of even taking their tent home at the end. Every year after the Reading festival, the site looks like a disaster zone, as if a hurricane has blown through, the aerial shots released of the aftermath remind me of the movie Twisters. Another wave of volunteers comes in to help clear away the debris. However, I heard one young person say: "My mum and dad didn't raise me to live this way." Young people are not a monolithic group, and we shouldn't expect them to be. We can’t tar them all with the same brush. Some may not care about the mess they leave behind them, but others really do.

6. Queueing is dying

Maybe it has always been this way, and I am just getting too old for it but it seems nobody respects my tactic of getting to the front to see the big-name band by arriving at the venue early, waiting for the barrier gates to open and then picking your spot and waiting. At Reading Festival, I’ve learned that about 5 minutes before the band comes on, there’s a sudden surge of people who snake their way through the crowd claiming to be ‘just finding their friends’. I didn’t see any great reunifications. What I saw was disrespect of the good old British value of queuing. The problem is I’m too old to remember whether I did that as a teenager too.

7. Faith is not embarrassing

The safe space run by the Reading Street Pastors was busy. Maybe it was due to the torrential downpour that left many tents uninhabitable, but I remember it being the same last year. The young people seemed to appreciate not only the company, hot chocolate and warm blanket, but also the opportunity to chat. Volunteers offer their help to all without distinction, whatever faith background they are from. But faith often came up in conversation. I heard: “Why do you run this tent?” “Why are you volunteering here?” “Are you guys religious?” “What does it mean to be a Christian?” “What are the best bits of the Bible to read when you are feeling lonely?” “What does the Bible say about drugs?” “Can you help me with the religion and ethics questions for my A-level Philosophy coursework?” Overall, faith was discussed openly, as something interesting and positive.

8. Mental health issues are losing their stigma

At 6.30am a huge security guard walked into our safe space and during the long conversation that ensued, what struck me was his openness about his mental health and anxiety. There was no stigma, no shame, in talking to me, a stranger, about his struggles. He was not the only one to be open about his mental health issues and it felt like a very healthy development in our society. Mental health and especially male mental health seem to have turned a corner.

9. Teenagers need to learn survival skills

Shivering in our safe space at 6.05 in the morning was a lad who had come to the Reading Festival with only his t-shirt and jeans. He didn’t even think he might need a coat, let alone a waterproof tent. At the other end of the space was a lad with a full-on Calor-gas stove, whipping up some nourishing pasta-based meals for his friends. It was clear to see which of the two 16-year-olds had done the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. The expedition training and experience has given him survival skills for life.

10. Music is a grand uniter

In my day, music fans would be glued to their television screens on a Thursday night as we waited to hear who had the number one single of the week. That hour of the week was part of our shared cultural identity and everyone was talking about it at school the next day. Nowadays, Youtube, Spotify and the other infinite ways to access music has taken away the grand unifying cultural portal that was Top Of The Pops. Yet, somehow, they provide young people with diploma-level knowledge in popular music through the decades. They all know not only the breakthrough artists and latest hits, but lyrics to everything from Sabrina Carpenter and Lana Del Ray to Oasis. On a warm summer’s evening, with the sun setting there’s something very beautiful about a crowd of 70,000 people singing songs together.