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NEWCASTLE CATHEDRAL
NEWCASTLE CATHEDRAL
A BEACON OF LIGHT
‘Jagged Edges’ Printmaking & Poetry Exhibition By David Creese, Peter Locke and Sarah Troughton
1st October - 26th November
FREEOrganiser
Jagged Edges is an exhibition of printmaking, poetry and music created by and for survivors of church-related abuse. The artists – David Creese, Peter Locke and Sarah Troughton – draw links between their own experiences and the story of Jesus as he approached his crucifixion.
Content warning: This exhibition includes images of torture (crucifixion) and references to moral and spiritual injuries caused by church-related abuse.
The Biblical ‘Stations of the Cross’ trace the path from Pilate’s house, where Jesus was condemned to death, to Calvary, where he was crucified. The Chaplaincy to Survivors in the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle brought together Sarah, David and Peter, all of whom have personal experience of church-related abuse, to explore the following question: ‘What happens when survivors use the Stations of the Cross as a means to speak both to their fellow survivors and to those who let them down in the communities where they were harmed?’.
In ‘Jagged Edges’, each survivor has approached the Gospel Passion narratives from her or his own perspective and through a different medium – linocut prints, music, poetry – to co-create their own Stations of the Cross.
The title ‘Jagged Edges’ reflects the unique elements of survivors’ individual experiences, which overlap but do not fit neatly together; it reflects the dissonant combination of God’s love and the harm done in and by God’s Church in those experiences, and it reflects the fact that survivors often engage with the Church from the periphery because that is where they feel safe.
The new Stations draw meaningful connections between the shared narrative of Jesus’s suffering and the lived experience of individuals harmed in Christian churches. They invite us to look at Jesus’s trauma and to see his story in a particular light: as a story of abuse and as a story of God’s love for and solidarity with those who have been abused. They are also an invitation from survivors to the rest of the Church and beyond to engage in the work of repair, reconciliation and recovery.
Click here to learn more about the Diocese of Newcastle’s Chaplaincy to Survivors.
Images: ‘Foot of the Cross’, ‘Peter’s Denial’ and ‘Simon from Cyrene’ by Sarah Troughton.
