Ritual/Bodies was a live performance event curated by Kate Pickering, exploring Christian ritual and the body, held at St Pancras Church, Euston on Saturday 6th July 2024. The event was hosted as part of a series of events by the Religion and Art research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London, and was the final in the series: Religion and Art Live. It comprised an afternoon of live performance by artists Holly Slingsby, Garry Rutter, Ric Stott, Kate Pickering, Katharina Ludwig and M. Maria Walhout, Sarah White and Sophie Sleigh-Johnson, followed by a panel discussion.
This event brought together artists from Pickering’s network who have been working, through performance, with aspects of Christian visual tradition, culture and ritual. The event aimed to pose questions performatively around bodily ritual within a historic site of Christian worship and to productively explore tensions around community/ individuality, inside/ outside, queer/ straight, male/ female, past/ present and orthodoxy/ heresy.
Eight performances ranged from a mournful fertility rite (Holly Slingsby), a playful communion (Garry Rutter), a mystical sermon (Ric Stott), a perambulatory reflection on colonialism, feminism and mortality (Kate Pickering - script below), a poetic conversation exploring bodily interiors and medieval wounds (Katharina Ludwig and M. Maria Walhout), a dance embodying faith and doubt (Sarah White), a spoken word and sound piece channelling lost parish boundaries (Sophie Sleigh-Johnson) and an invitation to hug a slow moving tree (Garry Rutter).
The performances were followed by a panel discussion chaired by myself and included Revd Dr Ayla Lepine (Art Historian, Associate Rector St James), Laura Moffatt (Director, Art and Christianity); Dr Teresa Calonje (art historian and curator); Dr Sophie Sleigh-Johnson (artist, writer and lecturer in Fine Art at Goldsmiths); Dr Katharina Ludwig (artist, writer and researcher) and M. Maria Walhout (artist, writer and researcher). The discussion explored how the artists and panel members approach ritual personally, professionally and artistically, how the event was curated to reference a church service, the current possible ‘religious turn’ in contemporary art and whether artists can or should take up the role of priest/ess.
Performances (all images below courtesy Manuela Barczewski):
Holly Slingsby - Earth Rite (church steps/ portico)
Kate Pickering - The Wandering Womb of St Julian (nave, crypt, threshold to the nave) - script linked in image below
Garry Rutter - Condensed Milk Club (nave)
Katharina Ludwig and M. Maria Walhout - Wet Muscle – Conjured Fragments (multiple locations)
Sophie Sleigh-Johnson – Diocletian Canticle (nave)
Sarah White - Oh Crumbs! (garden behind church)
Ric Stott - 100 Flowers of Psyche (nave)
Garry Rutter - Know that He’s the Last Man on Earth (nave)
