Sorry for the lack of a post last week - I've been really busy finding and then starting a job after finishing my Master's at the same time of preparing for and then taking part in an art exhibition! Which is what I wanted to write about today. Last week I had my first ever art exhibition. It was in central London and I exhibited with a group of 10 other people on the theme of Utopia. We all explored the theme from a sociological standpoint and a theological standpoint, and the conversations that grew out of this were incredible. I can't wait to do it again! This was my biggest piece in the exhibition: Measuring at 1m x 1.2m, it's also by far the biggest piece I've ever made! It's called Utopia: A Necessary Impossible Possibility.
My idea here is effectively that Utopia is something at the centre - at the core - which we’re searching for and yearning for, which is beautiful but impossible to fully grasp, impossible to reach and get to and put our hands on, and a mystery. But still it directs us. Around it, all the other aspects of ourselves and our lives float and mingle: some of them beautiful, others scary, others ambiguous. But they are directed into and towards the Utopia. As a Christian, the Utopia of a perfect God, and a perfect place where that perfect God will make all bad things disappear: well, I don’t understand that fully. It is impossible to fully grasp and reach, but it shapes how all the other aspects of my life fit together, flow and mingle. In the decisions that I make, I try to make them point towards that Utopia. Even though I know that I cannot fix the world and all its problems, I try to make decisions that do good, as if I could (even whilst knowing I can’t). In that sense, I am trying to bring into view something that is beautiful to others, and good, and impossibly wonderful, and mysterious. Something Utopian. Something like God.
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Yesterday I went on a class trip to London and part of that was a tour around the Tate Modern. The lady giving the tour was great! And while there's so much I could share about the art we saw and the things I learnt, I really just want to focus on the inspiring way she described what art does. Walking around, looking at the art, the way the space of the building is used and how the features of the building play into what is trying to be demonstrated and created, our guide told us about how art pokes at us, knocks us back and knocks us over, forcing us to think differently. It connects us with the sublime; something different and other and beyond us, and as we stood in the huge turbine hall that used to house turbines in every inch of space to create electricity, we were confronted with the impressiveness of human ingenuity but also our vulnerability, as small as ants. Then watching people playing on the swings in the main hall, we were encouraged to see them as a space where someone is forced to meet others and either ignore or embrace the stranger. Art tells us to ask questions rather than just hold prejudices; when we look at it, we can't escape the way it pervades our thinking, and it forces us to be brave to get to know it - to allow it to affect how we feel, and our views. Art also tells us to not believe what we see - to remind us that we don't know it all, and to search deeper and know that we still might never know it all. We always try to put things - and people - into boxes, but once we do neither can they change nor can we see anything else in them than what we have decided. Art teaches us to challenge this deciding who people are and what they can be - art can force us to consider other potentialities, and it can be more than one thing to different people or the same person at different times.
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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