Power Of Two

Marble dust
3000 x 300 cm approx
Saint Mark's Church, 'Situation Leeds' Festival of Public Art 2007 

Coloured by light from the stained glass windows above, an ephemeral blanket of geometric patterms based on Islamic architectural design stretches up the aisle of a deconsecrated church from the entrance to the altar.
The employment of geometry in Islamic art and decoration reflects a widespread taboo on religious depictions and exposes the distrust of treating material objects as spiritual or divine. Placed in a Christian context where icons are used freely in worship, we experience in union two highly contrasting methods of representation. Viewers are invited to question the complex attitude to both physical objects and spiritual representation that govern the two sets of iconography.

As the church interior crumbles, the walls erode and the stained glass loosens and falls, so the meticulously arrange dust is kicked, windswept and dislodged as visitors tread paths across it. The precise mathematical geometry is gradually disturbed, leaving fluid traces of the initial design.

The name of the piece is taken from the maths that was used to create the pattern, yet also alludes to the co-representation of two faiths in one place of worship.

 

     

Photos: Rona Smith and Steve Allbutt

Power Of Two was shortlisted for the ACE Award for Art in Religious Contexts 2007.  Panelists included Susan Hiller and Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton.