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28 Shirazeh Houshiary b. 1955 Houshiary is an Iranian artist. In 1973 she moved to London and attended the Chelsea School of Art, then was offered a Junior Fellowship at Cardiff College of Art. She draws inspiration from Sufi mystical doctrine and the 13th Century Persian mystic and poet Rumi. In 1994 Shirazeh was nominated for the Turner Prize and St Martins-in-the-Field commissioned her to design their East window. Her work can be found in many public and private collections, including MoMA New York and Tate London. String Quintet consists of five ascending stainless- steel spiralling ribbons that unravel from the ground. Each ribbon rises at a different wavelength, intertwining and weaving gently upwards. The changing daylight will simultaneously animate and dissolve its rise and fall. String Quintet is an ambitious, highly complex sculpture made of cast stainless steel. The sinuous lines of its multiple component pieces, twisting and curving round each other in lyrical exuberance, have their origins in wavelengths, therefore referencing energy rather than matter. Yet matter it is, the beauty of its presence profoundly physical, in its brushed steel, and in the meticulous delicacy of the joins where its constituent wave forms meet and cross or intersect. This work is not a delineating object, but rather, describes multi- dimensional space. The work occupies a volume considerably greater than its actual mass, as the work gives shape to sections of space just as clearly as to the material boundaries of that space. The success of this work is through its light and playful presence to give shape far more to what is not there than to what is: to the echoes and repercussions of the material world which can only ever be a shadow of the infinite possibility of space. "The Universe is in a process of disintegration, everything is in a state of erosion, and yet we try to stabilise it. This tension fascinates me and it's at the core of my work." An excerpt from, 'A Stone Thrown Into Water' by Greg Hilty, No Boundary Condition: Shirazeh Houshiary, Lisson Gallery and Cornerhouse Publications, 2011. String Quintet, 2011 Stainless Steel 500 x 135.1 x 116.7 cm Courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery www.lissongallery.com How might music be important in your life and why might music be important in Christian worship in this Cathedral, helping us to reflect on the nature of God?

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