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NEWCASTLE CATHEDRAL
NEWCASTLE CATHEDRAL
A BEACON OF LIGHT
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Conversations with Stone – Curated by Elizabeth Oughton (Exhibition)
11th February 2025 - 15th February 2025
‘Conversations with Stone’ is a group exhibition that includes local artists, current students and graduates from the MFA (Fine Art) programme at Newcastle University. The show explores the spiritual, social, cultural and economic histories of the building, interpreted through artistic practice.
The exhibition, featuring works by Alia Gargum, Bex Etheridge, Bridget Kennedy, Carol McCourt, Elizabeth Oughton, Sarah March and Sean Auld, will express the many voices contained within the material of the building, inviting a wider audience into these conversations with stone.
The Very Revd Lee Batson, Dean of Newcastle, writes:
The Christian community in the Holy Land often refer to themselves as the “living stones”.
It is a self-understanding which reflects their belief that their continuous presence in the land has shaped pilgrims’ collective experience of the holy sites in Jerusalem and elsewhere as much as the stones of the buildings themselves.
In a similar way, cathedrals and churches are often called “sermons in stone” – physical structures which shape the experience of those who worship within them and convey something to the wider landscape they inhabit.
In this cathedral, in particular, we also talk of the “stories in the stones”. I am delighted that we are able to host this exhibition as it explores further the way in which art in stone can shape our understanding and, in so doing, add to the stories that these stones exist to tell.
