Salisbury Cathedral has opened a virtual version of Celebrating 800 years of Spirit and Endeavour – its largest contemporary art exhibition for nearly two decades.
The virtual exhibition launches 800 years to the day after the first foundation stones were laid and just over a month after the real-life launch was halted by the COVID-19 lockdown. Prior to Salisbury Cathedral temporarily closing its doors, the entire exhibition was scanned and curator Jacquilin Creswell worked with the Cathedral team to launch an interactive virtual tour of the exhibition. The catalogue is also available online.
The result of three years of planning, Celebrating 800 years of Spirit and Endeavour brings together work from some of the most important and influential contemporary artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Antony Gormley, Shirazeh Houshiary, Henry Moore, Grayson Perry, Conrad Shawcross, Stanza, and Mark Wallinger.
Salisbury Cathedral’s Visual Arts Adviser and curator Jacquiline Creswell said, “It does strike me as profound that commemorating the placing of a stone 800 years ago, something so physical and monumental at the same time, is now taking place on a virtual, online platform – something the original Cathedral builders could not have imagined. The exhibition was conceived as a celebration of the human spirit and human endeavour, manifested through the faith and skill that drove the Cathedral builders and their community on. That shared humanity and capacity to create and endure holds today and, whether online or offline, I hope this exhibition encourages viewers to look forward with hope.”
The virtual tour consists of an external tour and an internal exhibition. The external tour was created using panorama technology with click-through thumbnail links that take the viewer to the relevant catalogue page and offer an opportunity to watch 360-degree videos of each piece. The internal exhibition allows the visitors to enter the Cathedral virtually, watch a video introduction from Jacquiline Creswell, and navigate their way around the Cathedral using thumbnails of each work with links to the relevant catalogue pages. Viewers can also explore the virtual space, enjoying the context in which the art is set.
Celebrating 800 years of Spirit and Endeavour was originally part of Salisbury 2020 City on the Move – a year of events and activities planned to celebrate the Cathedral’s move from the Old Sarum and its foundation to the present site. Unfortunately many of these events have had to be deferred or cancelled, but plans are underway to move some of that activity online.
The move from Old Sarum was politically, logistically, commercially and spiritually audacious, made in defiance of the king’s soldiers garrisoned at Old Sarum, with a construction plan that would challenge even modern, technologically advanced builders. The main body of the Cathedral was completed in just 38 years, and within a few decades the city around it had become one of the most influential and populous in the country.
Jacquiline Creswell’s first challenge was to mount an exhibition that embodies the spirit, ambition, faith and endeavour that brought about the move and the construction of this magnificent Cathedral. Her second was to imbue the online exhibition tour with as much of the awe and wonder that the original exhibition evokes.
Dr. Robert Titley, Salisbury Cathedral’s Canon Treasurer and Chair of the Cathedral’s Arts Advisory Committee said, “Christianity is a religion of redemption and salvation. We planned this exhibition to celebrate a landmark birthday for our Cathedral and city but the coronavirus overtook us. Now – thanks to this virtual realisation – the exhibition live anew to bring hope and delight in a time of trouble, passing through the closed doors of isolation and lockdown. It is a sign of what is possible when the Spirit of God fuels human endeavour.”
