Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1239894
challenges', and to 'open up conversation and explore… questions of our shared Humanity.' xiv This started with the siting of major sculptures: 'Construction (Crucifixion): Homage to Piet Mondrian' 1966-67 by Barbara Hepworth, now in the Cloister Garth, and Elisabeth Frink's powerful 'Walking Madonna' of 1981 in the Cathedral Close about which the Dean, Sydney Evans, wrote, 'This figure symbolises… human dignity and creativity over militarism and totalitarian disregard for human dignity and rights.' In May 2018, as part of the enlarged arts programme, an international project, 'Les Colombes', by artist and stage designer Michael Pendry was installed at the Cathedral for the final year commemorations for the First World War. Composed of thousands of origami paper doves suspended in the Nave, the installation had grown as people added more doves in each iteration in different cities and countries. In Salisbury something else happened. Some 2,500 doves were suspended in the Cathedral and plans were in place for various workshops to make and add more. But it emerged that visitors identified the doves as embodying resilience within an embattled city following the Skripal poison attack. Some 25,000 sheets of origami paper were then offered around Salisbury, with 15,000 instruction sheets and 10,000 dove templates for dove-making workshops and displays. So the doves started to spread and remained visible for many months, appearing in cafes and shop windows across the city. xiii 'Reflections of a memorial to the Holocaust', David Lister, The Independent, 1 November 1996, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/reflections-of-a-memorial-to-the-holocaust-1350111.html xiv Jacquiline Creswell, Visual Arts Advisor, leads the programme working closely with members of Chapter. The programme is guided by an advisory group and follows a published Visual Arts Policy, https://www.salisburycathedral.org. uk/visit/permanent-art-exhibitions Sandy Nairne CBE FSA is a curator and writer. From 2002 to 2015 he was Director of the National Portrait Gallery and before that Director of Programmes at Tate. He is a trustee of the National Trust and the Samuel Courtauld Collection, and currently chairs the Fabric Advisory Committee at St Paul's Cathedral and the Maggie's Art Group, supporting Maggie's Cancer Care Centres. His books include State of the Art (1987), Thinking about Exhibitions (1996) and Art Theft and the Case of the Stolen Turners (2011). What started as a spectacular commemoration of the First World War extended to become a major participative work about collective and communal renewal, and also about human resilience. Only the collaboration between an artist and a cathedral could perhaps have produced such a wide-reaching creative effect and a significant legacy for the city. Sandy Nairne CBE FSA January 2020 Michael Pendry, 'Les Colombes', Salisbury Cathedral, 2018 From Salisbury Cathedral images by Ash Mills