Gwithian Chapel Residency

Day 3

Van issues meant I didn’t get into the chapel today, but I have been reflecting on sacred spaces and on memories from recent travels. I am a week back from spending over three months in India and Morocco, spending time around temples and mosques, listening to the sounds and observing acts of devotion.

This is my third year doing this, and I have noticed that I am often drawn to making work in wastelands, beaches, roadsides or derelict buildings. I collect dirt, fragments, shards and small materials. I spend time selecting what to keep, what to photograph, and what to discard. I also film myself arranging and rearranging these objects, exploring connections and rhythms between them.
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I have not yet had the time to go through all the photos and videos or to fully make sense of what I was doing. This residency and the very act of being given this chapel, feels like a rare opportunity. It is a quiet, contained space where I can sit, think and gradually sieve through my thoughts.  

Coming back to the studio after time away was overwhelming. There were many different strands of work all over the place. The chapel allows two things to happen at once: I can reflect on India and Morocco, on the rhythms of ritual and attention that I witnessed and I can process the physical objects and materials that exist in my studio. Thinking and handling, observing and sorting, are happening together. The chapel residency will give me time to notice connections, make sense (or not) of fragments and consider how all of this might feed back into my work.

The question of what makes a place sacred continues to return. Is it the architecture, the actions, or the attention and care given by those within it? Remembering the temples and mosques and the devotion I witnessed, I realise it is often both. The space and the gestures within it, the rhythm of repetition, the focus, and the small acts of care make a place feel alive and sacred.

Having time in the chapel just after returning from months of travel feels deeply aligned. It is a perfectly timed opportunity to reflect, to process both experience and material and to make sense of the many threads of work.