Summer celebration of our refugees' resilience - in Chichester Cathedral

Kate has put together a collection of sculptural works, celebrating human diversity and resilience, bringing together Chichester residents to explore different cultural values and faiths and to build connections.

The exhibition, supported by The Arts Council, comprises seven sculptural portraits. Each of the subjects is connected by the fact that they are building a new life in Chichester, some having found refuge from persecution. Since 2019 Kate has been working with Sanctuary in Chichester to produce creative opportunities for asylum seekers and refugees in the Chichester district. The exhibition has emerged as a result.

“I really wanted to develop the narrative and I started talking to the cathedral about using the sculptural exhibition. With Sanctuary we've been doing art projects, really just creative opportunities for people to have fun and to express themselves and to enjoy themselves and the great thing about sculpture is that it is a way of communicating without language. My work is about connection, and portraiture is the perfect way to connect with someone you have not met. You're putting that person on a pedestal. You're elevating them. And the seven sculptures in Chichester represent people who have come to live in Chichester having been displaced from their own homes as a result of war or persecution. It's an opportunity for us to celebrate this new community. The cathedral is a place of faith and hope and also art, and usually we see people that are portrayed because of the great things that they have achieved. But the cathedral also wants to represent the things that it cherishes like connection and communication and day-to-day living, and that's what you see here.

“I chose the people with Sanctuary and we chose people that would really benefit from the experience of being sculpted. It's very empowering but it is also really quite intense, eight sessions of three hours where you are being really looked at. The people come from many different countries and faiths.”

The countries include Iran, Sudan, Burundi, Ukraine and Syria plus one person who was born in this country: “I think the exhibition is about emotion and tenderness. It is a window into the person that we're looking at. You don't know their back story as you're looking at the piece and you don't know where they come from but you make a sense of connection with them. You're looking into their eyes and you can feel that communication. I asked each person to give me one word about how they wanted to be expressed and what was important to them. One said it's about very much being a good listener; another person it was just about being incredibly gentle; another person wanted to be seen as a super warrior; another person was very stoic. It's all very humbling. Each person is anonymous but underneath each sitter there are words, and the words are the sitter’s words, and the words are about their values. It's a wonderfully optimistic exhibition and we have had a really emotional time putting it together.”

Resilience in Clay will be on show until August 31, supported by a programme of events.

​