15,000 peace doves soar inside Chichester Cathedral

SussexWorld

A remarkable mass expression of hope and peace will likely take your breath away in Chichester Cathedral this autumn.

Transcript

00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers, and it's

00:06 fantastic to be speaking to Peter Walker, who is masterminding something truly fabulous

00:11 in Chichester Cathedral this autumn. Something like, we're not holding you to a precise number,

00:17 but something like 15,000 peace dubs will be suspended above the nave, each with a very

00:23 individual message of hope and message of peace. How did this whole thing happen?

00:31 The peace dubs is a touring artwork that we take around a number of cathedrals around

00:35 the UK. We're bringing it here to Chichester. It's going to look beautiful in this space,

00:41 really really remarkable space here. And it's different to many artworks where an artist

00:46 will create an artwork and they will bring it somewhere and people look at it. Here we're

00:50 actually looking at a community expression, a community coming together to help me as

00:55 an artist create something, which is a very large piece of art. It's a very large artwork

01:00 at its own pace. But each individual artwork that they've made, each expression of peace

01:06 and hope, as you say, that is written on one of our individual peace dubs, that in itself

01:11 is almost the fingerprint of the community. We bring all of that together, all 15,000

01:16 of them, suspend them within the nave, and then we create this monumental artwork here

01:21 within the building, which really sits in harmony with the architecture, but as a really

01:27 beautiful and ethereal...

01:28 And you were saying as it tours, so it feels individual to the respective venues it goes

01:35 to. It reflects what's happening in that community, doesn't it?

01:39 That's true. Even though it's an artwork in itself, everywhere we go we re-curate it.

01:44 So we redesign it on site for the building, for the architecture, and wherever we go,

01:49 the community and the feelings of that community are expressed through how they engage with

01:54 writing or participation within the project. Around 6,000 children, I think, have been

02:00 invited within schools as well to be involved in this. So it really is a big community effort

02:05 to bring it together. But that artwork at the end, then, that's my job as the sculptor,

02:10 to then design that in the space, so we have a piece of work that is fitting of a building

02:14 which is enriched with artwork.

02:17 And it sounds like there's a really lovely balance between the privacy of these individual

02:20 messages, which are obviously folded, so not that obvious, but also they're suspended and

02:25 therefore become part of this massive collective thing, don't they? A collective expression

02:31 of something.

02:32 Yeah, very much so. The whole idea here is that every individual message of Hope and

02:38 Peace comes together to create that collective. We don't often have the opportunity to do

02:43 that, to come together and to say something through our own voices, but to bring it together.

02:48 So by doing that, that actually creates the whole and the essence of the work. But those

02:53 individual messages, those individual thoughts that people have, they're out of eyesight.

03:00 You might see the odd word when you look up, but by being out of eyesight, there is privacy

03:04 to it, but there is knowledge that they're there for when people to come in. And also

03:08 that these shared concerns, these shared thoughts, with another 14,000 plus people, all of your

03:14 thoughts and cares and wishes, and some of them are very moving, some of them are quite

03:18 profound, some of them, some people are looking for end to war, some people are thinking about

03:25 a loved one who they've lost and they're still thinking about. So by bringing all that together

03:29 actually shows a great deal of the emotion of this community.

03:34 And for you as the sculptor, it must be fascinating to watch people come in. Do you have a little

03:38 look and see the reactions as people enter?

03:42 We do at times. I often say that our artwork, when we create these big installations, are

03:48 based on three specific parts. So one is the artwork itself, that's what we bring together.

03:56 The second is the venue, and here it's a remarkable venue with hundreds of years of history imbued

04:03 in these walls and hundreds of years of artwork imbued within the building itself and the

04:08 glass windows, etc. And then the third part is the audience, the visitor to the building.

04:15 And as soon as they come into the building, that's when the artwork comes alive. And it's

04:18 through that engagement that we have the emotional connection. You know, we see children moving

04:25 and dancing underneath, sometimes we see people hugging underneath. There's also music accompanying

04:31 it as well, which is really beautiful and meditative. And all of those elements together,

04:36 when we've seen people engage with these artworks in the past, create for a really beautiful

04:41 and serene experience.

04:42 Goodness, it sounds fabulous. It sounds incredibly powerful too. Really lovely to speak to you

04:47 and I look forward very much indeed to actually seeing it. Thank you ever so much for your

04:52 time. Thank you.

04:53 Thank you. Thank you.

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