Salisbury Cathedral has opened its new contemporary art exhibition, To Be Free, showcasing modern works of art advocating for the freedom of people around the world.
The exhibition, which opened on Saturday, May 13, has been eight months in the making, and features work by six artists.
Cathedral employees started carefully laying the artwork on Wednesday, May 10 in preparation.
Cathedral-goers can now see Ai Weiwei’s Free Speech Puzzle 2015, a depiction of China with the provinces as puzzle pieces and the Chinese characters for “free speech” written on each province/puzzle piece. The artwork is displayed across the room from the Prisoners of Conscience Window.
Around the corner, in the North Transept, visitors can see Cornelia Parker’s Magna Carta (An Emroidery), a 13-metre-long embroidery depicting the Wikipedia page about the Magna Carta.
Directly opposite, in the South Transept, hangs Mona Hatoum’s Map (mobile) 2019. Made of very light glass, photos cannot do it justice, as it becomes nearly see-through on camera.
The work consists of different panels of glass representing the numerous continents and countries around the world. As the glass panels move with drafts and other influences, the countries and continents move in relation and orientation to each other, symbolising the changing nature of borders.
Beth Hughes, Salisbury Cathedral’s official arts curator said: “One thing we’ve spoken about with this artwork is that maps are not neutral. Every time a map is drawn, because there are so many contested boundaries around the world, every map is political in some way.”
Hanging in the cathedral creates a symbiosis between the modern sculpture and the mediaeval architecture.
Beth said: “It’s really beautiful in the cathedral, specifically, as the glass captures elements of the architecture and then also it becomes more present as it sort of drifts in and out of your view.”
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At the West End, where visitors first walk in, stands Yinka Shonibare’s Justice For All, which was first shown in the UK in 2020 in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd.
Other artists featured in the exhibition are Lucy Jones, who explores the challenges of gender, age and disability and Jeffrey Gibson, whose textile work They Want to be Free 2021 reflects his Choctaw-Cherokee heritage.
The To Be Free exhibition will remain until September. At 7pm on Thursday, July 13, Baroness Shami Chakrabarti will be giving at talk entitled To Be Free: Art and Liberty.
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