Our forthcoming exhibition ‘Sanctuary’ opens on 13th April from 2-5pm: all are warmly welcome to the opening of the show. It then continues until 25th May and we are open Friday - Sunday 10-5pm.
Oddly I stumbled upon the theme for this show during my last exhibition here at the gallery during November 2024 when I read and shared a poem on Instagram exploring ‘Sanctuary’. Today as I write this the theme seems so pertinent & relevant.
The concept of sanctuary is integral to human nature—gathering in safe spaces, building spiritual havens, and discovering who we are beyond our mundane daily life. A sanctuary is steeped in intention, reverence, and peace. It is often a physical place of refuge where the imprints of truce exist.
Sanctuary - noun
refuge or safety from pursuit, persecution, or other danger.
"his sons took sanctuary in the church"‘
Sanctuary declares that beyond a certain ‘line in the sand’ law and justice must give way to mercy; to the need for respite.’ - Angela Graham
“Sanctuary is… …a place of refuge from danger, threat, injury, and fear. It has been recognized since ancient times—and scientific research has validated this — that for physical and emotional healing to occur, people need such a protected space in order to allow time, healers, and the natural powers of recovery to work their magic.” From, Destroying Sanctuary“
“There is no perfect organization. Few of us have experienced emotionally intelligent environments of perfect safety, where honesty and openness prevail and there are no secrets, where continuous learning from conflict is the norm, where decisions are routinely made by democratic consensus balancing individual needs with the common good, where justice is accorded to everyone, or where loss is compassionately understood and honoured as a key factor in change and everyone shares in a drive toward a better future.
Sanctuary is a place, a mission, a way of life, a state of being. It is a space of refuge and tranquility, where life is sacred and trauma is healed, where humans and other animals are free from harm and live in peace with dignity.” - Sandra Bloom
Here’s the poem that led me to want to explore Sanctuary:
There Must Be Somewhere
that is safe from violation.
Childhood. Being son, or daughter. Pregnancy,
old age, infirmity – none of these.
The corridors of hospitals, asylums, refuges
– places we thought were sacrosanct –
are roamed by predators
and though the innocent fox has his earth
and the birds of the air their nests, we are un-homing
ourselves and ravaging even our own minds.
Yet we hope for sanctuary, a nook out of the wind,
shelter in the cwtch of someone’s overcoat,
a harbouring gaze, if nothing else.
I often think about that song The Parting Glass.
The last toast raised, the one who has to leave
steps out, across the threshold, into the turbulent night;
that brilliant room
(where the worst of him was known, forgiven, shouldered)
remains his compass, carried always.
Nowhere is safe. We know that.
And we know that somewhere is
because we’ve been there, irrefutably,
and we can find it,
open its door,
return to the welcome that we left.
There must be somewhere - by Angela Graham
Over 100 artists applied to be in the show - 28 of whom were selected:
Lynda Cockshott - Gail Deptford
Katherine Taylor - Ally Kendrick Clew
Victoria Reynolds - Geraldine Smith
Oana Bakovic - Mary Wood
Lior Locher - Chris Avis
Laura Murgia - Rachael Merrison
David Tidsall - Hannah Battershell
Heidi Clawson - Matt Oliver
Vanessa Stone - Andrew Warby
Philip Jack Bray - Sue Laughlin
Bev Seth - Nigel Smith
Rebecca Patterson - Justine Williams
Volha Druhakova - Linda Sharman
Lynne Lamb - Catherine Reeve
