Bishop David gave the keynote address of the Study Day at St Paul's Harlow on the value of public art.
The first example of Public Art in the Bible is the bronze snake of the book of Numbers. Moses said, Look at it and live. A good inspiration for any public artist.
The bronze snake prefigured the death of Christ on the Cross.
The symbol of the Cross is probably the most used symbol around the world.
Why Public Art? Some opening suggestions as to why it is really important for all.
1 it helps provide an identity, a rallying point.
2 It raises aspiration.
3 It lifts our eyes beyond the humdrum of daily life.
In our own time there is no better example than the Angel of the North, which has raised the aspiration of the north-east.
Andrew Motion's poem 'What if?' at Sheffield station reproduced in huge writing is another example. And Banksy teaches us that there is no distinction between high and low art - just good and bad art.
Public art is especially important now. So many of our communities are dominated by multi-national global images e.g. KFC, Costas etc. Theses are overtaking our communities so that the individual identities of our communities are being crowded out.
What makes human beings distinct?
1 Hunan beings need to be inspired, a vision beyond little old me
2 The need to belong to and aspire to something different.
3 There is that in is that nerds beauty
4 We need contemplation.
The arts point to God, the essence of beauty.
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Sunday, 18 September 2011
Monday, 11 August 2008
The Future's Orange - no longer
Very struck by the mailing from the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity (LICC) about the new Orange ad. The mailing is entitled Who Are You? Incidentally, their regular mailings are excellent - visit http://www.licc.org.uk
The optimistic mantra that began, ‘The future’s bright, the future’s …’ has been ditched. In the biggest global advertising campaign ever launched, Orange have introduced their new litany: ‘I am who I am because of everyone.’ It’s playing on a TV near you.
For sixty seconds, the camera pans over a range of people, a disembodied voice explaining, ‘I am my mum, and my sister. I am my best friend, Mike, who I’ve known since school’ and so on. Backed by a chilled, trance-like music track, it works. It doesn’t scream the product it’s selling, it merely gives off a vibe that emphasises how important communication is.
We are surrounded by competing voices trying to shape us, not least, ironically, the advertising world. This world is the funfair mirror of our culture, taking our desires, our aspirations, and our beliefs and slightly distorting them before reflecting them back to us. The apostle Paul’s urgent plea not to be conformed to the world (Romans 12:2) continues to be relevant to all of us; if we are not on our guard, we will find ourselves unwittingly moulded by the loudest voices, the most insistent personalities, and the most forceful events.
This week Alexander Solzhenitsyn died. His writing, courage, and independence have been praised. During the time of the Cold War, he was the darling of the West – the writer who unveiled the inhumanity of the communist system in Russia. When the Politburo could no longer stomach him, they deported him. It was a shock, therefore, when in 1979, delivering a speech at the bastion of Western liberalism, Harvard University, he placed both communism and Western capitalism on the same level: morally bankrupt, because of their insistence on living without reference to God.
Prophets are never easy to live with. They seem to enjoy flying in the face of received opinion. They rarely present their words against a chilled, trance-like soundtrack. They are what they are because of others around them, and because of what they obediently allow God to say and do through them.
We are all being shaped, all being discipled. It’s just a question of who is doing that shaping. We need to assemble the different shaping voices into a proper, biblical order of significance, so that we, in our time, can accurately ‘hear what the Spirit says to the churches’ (Revelation 2:7).
Neil Hudson
The optimistic mantra that began, ‘The future’s bright, the future’s …’ has been ditched. In the biggest global advertising campaign ever launched, Orange have introduced their new litany: ‘I am who I am because of everyone.’ It’s playing on a TV near you.
For sixty seconds, the camera pans over a range of people, a disembodied voice explaining, ‘I am my mum, and my sister. I am my best friend, Mike, who I’ve known since school’ and so on. Backed by a chilled, trance-like music track, it works. It doesn’t scream the product it’s selling, it merely gives off a vibe that emphasises how important communication is.
We are surrounded by competing voices trying to shape us, not least, ironically, the advertising world. This world is the funfair mirror of our culture, taking our desires, our aspirations, and our beliefs and slightly distorting them before reflecting them back to us. The apostle Paul’s urgent plea not to be conformed to the world (Romans 12:2) continues to be relevant to all of us; if we are not on our guard, we will find ourselves unwittingly moulded by the loudest voices, the most insistent personalities, and the most forceful events.
This week Alexander Solzhenitsyn died. His writing, courage, and independence have been praised. During the time of the Cold War, he was the darling of the West – the writer who unveiled the inhumanity of the communist system in Russia. When the Politburo could no longer stomach him, they deported him. It was a shock, therefore, when in 1979, delivering a speech at the bastion of Western liberalism, Harvard University, he placed both communism and Western capitalism on the same level: morally bankrupt, because of their insistence on living without reference to God.
Prophets are never easy to live with. They seem to enjoy flying in the face of received opinion. They rarely present their words against a chilled, trance-like soundtrack. They are what they are because of others around them, and because of what they obediently allow God to say and do through them.
We are all being shaped, all being discipled. It’s just a question of who is doing that shaping. We need to assemble the different shaping voices into a proper, biblical order of significance, so that we, in our time, can accurately ‘hear what the Spirit says to the churches’ (Revelation 2:7).
Neil Hudson
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