Heaton Arts Festival

Community Arts Festival, Heaton, Newcastle Was requested to make a piece of work for the church St Gabriel's in Heaton. I met with the church contact and spoke to a number of parishioners. I researched the history of the site and the church. I asked members of the church and its groups to contribute one word which captured what St. Gabriel.s meant to them, to put them on small piece of paper and put into a box anonymously. I collected the words the following week. I then transposed these words onto larger pieces of cartridge paper and hung them on the back of some of the individual pew chairs unique to that church and placed them in a circle in the small Lady's Chapel part of the church. As I only had around three half days to do the whole project, I was limited with the amount of engagement I could have with the parishioners. I placed a number of lanterns on some of the chairs to help symbolise that on the site of the church there had once been a mine; also, I felt peoples views were a very important part of the art making process as the church had been build through public subscription, therefore, the community had decided themselves that this was something they really wanted and needed; the chairs had the paper and words on them hung inwardly using the little individual hooks on the back of each chair usually used for a prayer mat. As people walked around the installation at twilight they could see many of the words at one look; the only light was from the lanterns and the fading summer evening light. The circle of the chairs encouraged people to walk around the whole circle and also as the chairs were facing outward, to pause, stop, sit and contemplate/pray as part of the installation, so that they could become part of it.