ACE organises lectures, study days, conferences, workshops and retreats. These have taken place both in the UK and internationally in partnership a wide variety of groups and individuals.
A reading list of books and journals in the field of art and religion can be downloaded here.
EDUCATION
Art and Theology Summer School
Following extensive research into visual arts education in theological colleges, ACE is providing (for the third year running) a study week on art and theology for students at Ripon College, Cuddesdon in May 2013. For details of the programme please contact the ACE office.
Previous ACE events
The ACE / ASK Artists’ Talks series
Blue Like Me – The Art of Siona Benjamin
Siona Benjamin is a painter originally from Bombay, now living in the US.
Her work reflects her background of being brought up Jewish in a predominantly Hindu and Muslim India. In her paintings she combines the imagery of her past with the role she plays in America today, making a mosaic inspired by both Indian miniature paintings and Sephardic icons.
www.artsiona.com
Thursday 13 June 2013
6.30-8.30pm in the Council Room, Strand building, King’s College London
An event hosted by Art & Christianity Enquiry (ACE) and the centre for
Arts and the Sacred at King’s (ASK) and in association with AICA UK.
ACE bus tour! Discover how architecture and art have shaped contemporary church communities
On the morning of 29 May, ACE ventured from the Hay Festival on a guided bus tour with the Rt Revd Dr David Stancliffe of Abbey Dore, Kilpeck and Clodock churches ending at Peterchurch for lunch and Pimms.
ACE/Mercers' Book Award lecture
14 May, 6.15-8pm in the Council Room, Strand building at King's College London, Margot Fassler, winner of the ACE/Mercers' International Book Award will give a lecture on Hildegard and the Virtues:
The Visual and the Musical in the Ordo Virtutum’.
Download a flyer for this event
ACE international conference 2012 – Art and Christianity in Revolutionary Times
9 – 13 July, Boston, Massachussetts
A full conference report has been published in Art & Christianity no71. Visit our A&C Journal page for more details.
Q&A – Urban Dialogues and the visual arts
28 November, 2012 Red Gallery, London
An ACE event to explore the dialogue between faith, art and identity organised in conjunction with the 3FF Urban Dialogues exhibition
Speakers included Aaron Rosen (lecturer in Sacred Traditions and the Arts, KCL), Nina Danino (artist and lecturer at Goldsmiths College) and Rosalind Parker, curator of the Urban Dialogues exhibition.
A special screening of Nina Danino's latest film Communion took place.
ACE and the Three Faiths Forum – Faith and the City
21 Nov – 5 Dec 2011, London
For the second year running, the Three Faiths Forum together with the ACE, JCC for London and Maslaha delivered a vibrant contemporary arts festival celebrating intercultural friendship during National Interfaith Week.
Over the past year, artists from different backgrounds have been collaborating on visual art projects, creating works that explore faith relations and how people from different communities can bring about social change. This provided the stimulus and backdrop for two weeks of events including workshops, seminars, women-only days, school linking days, and social action events.
Collaborating artists: Soraya Syed Sanders, Francesca Ulivari, Orly Orbach, Edward Johansson Mukhtar Sanders, Hannah ‘Habibi’ Hopkin, Emer Costello, Mo Negm, Camilla Howalt. Curated by Victoria Burgher.
Tracey Emin's For you, 9 December 2010, Liverpool Cathedral
A reception open to all to mark the Award given to Liverpool Cathedral for their commission by Tracey Emin and to launch ACE's publication Contemporary art in British churches.
The Challenge of the Permanent Commission
16 November 2010, All Hallows on the Wall
A panel discussion between contemporary artists and 'commissioners'
The panel includes artists Mark Cazalet, Iain McKillop and Victoria Rance and Director of Modus Operandi, Vivien Lovell, Revd Canon Anthony Cane from Chichester Cathedral.
In the chair, Paul Bayley, Art in Churches Officer for Art and Christianity Enquiry.
Prof Mia M Mochizuki – The legacy of iconoclasm for the image
19 November 2010, The Courtauld Institute of Art
Winner of the 2009 ACE/Mercers’ International Book Award for 'The Netherlandish Image after Iconoclasm, 1566-1672; Material Religion in the Dutch Golden Age' (Ashgate, 2008), Dr Mochizuki considered the legacy of iconoclasm for the image. By taking the long view of cast off or 'thrown away' objects and the objects they stimulated she explored the rhetorical performance of doubt that iconoclasm interjected into the realm of the visual and what this anxiety offers the criticism of the material manifestations of belief.
Interfaith Arts Festival
November 2010, Candid Arts
The Three Faiths Forum hosted a vibrant contemporary arts festival celebrating inter-cultural friendship and collaboration. Bringing together a wide range of both interfaith and single faith organisations, and featuring everything from an exciting opening night with live music and performances to workshops and dialogue during the week, the festival at Candid Arts Gallery in Angel was part of National Interfaith Week 2010.
ACE International conference 2009 – Image(s) and Ethic(s)/L'ethic de l'image
6 – 10 July 2009, Strasbourg, France
The conference programme included keynote lectures by Jérome Cottin and Sarah Wilson; excursions to Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, Colmar and museums and places of worship in Strasbourg.
Icons of the absence of God: A symposium on Rothko and spirituality
24 January 2009, King's College London
Does Rothko offer consolation to a godless world? Where lies the enigma of Rothko’s paintings?
To coincide with a major exhibition of Mark Rothko’s work at Tate Modern, this symposium critically reviewed different interpretations of these works, and how they speak to their social and cultural context, from the perspectives of cultural history, neuro-science, art history and theology.
Chaired by Ben Quash, Professor of Christianity and the Arts, KCL.
Click on papers below to download a pdf
Aaron Rosen: Finding Rothkowitz: The Jewish Rothko
Jonathan Harris: Mark Rothko's good paintings about nothing
Daniel Glaser: Can neurobiology tell you how you feel about a picture? (unavailable)
George Pattison: After an end: unsaying painting>
ACE Awards events 2008
Stephen Cox in conversation with Robert Willis (Dean of Canterbury), Stephen Bann (Professor of Art History at the University of Bristol) and Christopher Irvine (Canon Librarian at Canterbury Cathedral). 12 Sep, 7.30pm at the ISC, Canterbury Cathedral. Read a transcript in issue 56 of 'Art and Christianity'.
Rose Finn-Kelcey discussed her work and the award-winning installation Angel with ACE's art in churches officer Paul Bayley. Ellard and Johnstone also presented a film work. 25 Sep, 6.30pm at St Paul's Bow Common, London E3.
Book award winner Jules Lubbock gave an illustrated lecture on Stories of Justice in 14th-Century Art. 20 Oct, 6pm at the Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Strand, London WC2.
Peter Doll (Team Vicar of Abingdon) and Peter Newby (Priest of St Mary Moorfields, London) on Building a temple for the third millennium; new directions in church architecture. 25 Oct, 2.30pm at St Bede's Basingstoke.
2007 International conference: Art, Faiths and Culture – Convergence and Conflict
2 – 6 July, Trinity Hall, Cambridge
The conference programme included contributions from Duncan Robinson (Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum), Edmund de Waal and Eamon Duffy; an interfaith forum; visits to Ely Cathedral and the Henry Moore Foundation; and an evening reception at Kettle's Yard.
A full report of conference papers was published in no 52 (Oct 07) of Art and Christianity. Download the pdf here.
Faith and Architecture in a multi-faith world
13 March 2007, Ladywood ARC, Birmingham
A seminar exploring Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim places of worship, and buildings that are shared by people of different faiths.
Morning Session: Religious buildings in Ladywood; new build for 4 different faith communities
Afternoon session: Under one roof; tackling the challenge of multi-faith buildings
See issue no 50 (Apr 07) of ‘Art & Christianity’ for a report.
Velázquez and Religion
9 December 2006, National Gallery, London
The session was introduced by Dawson Carr, curator of Velázquez and speakers included David Jasper from the Dept of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow, Sara Nalle from William Paterson University, New Jersey and Ronald Truman, Christchurch, Oxford.
Abstraction and figuration in religious art
20 August 2006, City Art Centre, Edinburgh
This event marked the success of Still by Alison Watt, the painting that won the ACE Art Award 2005/6. Prof David Jasper gave a paper on the above theme.
Art, Religion and Community – an interfaith perspective
1 May 2006, National Portrait Gallery
How do the Abrahamic faiths use art and architecture to create a sense of identity? What are their distinct features, and where are they similar? Can their art and architecture foster a sense of belonging today? How do contemporary artists use (and abuse) religious themes?
Speakers: Rachel Garfield has a PhD on contemporary Jewish identity in the visual arts in Britain. She is herself an artist currently making interview-based work that explores the cultural narratives of Jewish people in the community.
Thalia Kennedy is a lecturer and writer who focuses on the architecture of the Islamic world. She recently completed her PhD in which she explored issues of identity and religion through the buildings of medieval South Asia.
Charles Pickstone is an Anglican parish priest who is also a writer and art critic, with a particular interest in the ways that Christian communities use art to develop their theology and in the use that secular artists make of Christian themes.
See our listings page for current exhibitions and events.