Friday 26th July – 8th August

Portsmouth and Hampshire Art Society Summer Exhibition.

PHAS was formed in 1909 under the guidance of the renowned marine artist W L Wyllie RA. The exhibition is of works by both professional and amateur artists in a range of styles and media.

Exhibition by Hampshire Calligraphers: ‘Inspired by Books’, running from Tuesday 28th May through until Sunday 9th June. Held in the Cathedral Welcome Area.  Free for all visitors. For more information, visit - www.hampshirecalligraphers.co.uk

Please see website: www.portsmouthcathedral.org.uk for opening times.

From Thursday 24th January to Friday 5th July. An exhibition of charcoal and pencil ‘Time’ themed drawings suspended between the pillars in the Nave by artist in residence Pete Codling, who spent the summer and autumn of 2018 in the Cathedral tower hermitage.

This work, by Hampshire photographer John Farnhill, is the culmination of a two-year project to document some of the key sites of conflict from the First World War. Rather than seek out the usual scars of war or the memorials that are so often pictured, these current, empty and organic landscapes invite the viewer to contemplate historic events and complete their own narrative.

You can find out more about the photographer here: http://www.johnfarnhillphotography.com/gallery

Standing in Silence

In 1917 John Masefield, later to be Poet Laureate, visited the battlefields of the Somme and shortly afterwards published a book entitled “the Old Front Line” in which he wrote,

“All wars end; even this war will some day end, and the ruins will be rebuilt and the fields full of death will grow food, and all this frontier of trouble will be forgotten. When the trenches are filled in, and the plough has gone over them, the ground will not long keep the look of war. One summer with its flowers will cover most of the ruin that man can make, and then these places, from which the driving back of the enemy began, will be hard indeed to trace.”*

One hundred years on ‘these places’ are not hard to trace. Indeed many of them are marked with memorials, beautifully maintained cemeteries, and a variety of plaques, maps and markers of one sort or another. There are still traces of the Great War across the old Western Front. These often take the form of preserved trenches or the pock-marked ground of artillery shelling. Like the larger memorials these places may well have a visitor centre attached to them and all are part of a thriving tourist industry. People come from all over the world to visit the grave of a relative, school parties descend on the giant monument at Thiepval, the Menin Gate at Ypres and Newfoundland Park. Images of the graves, the cemeteries, the scarred landscapes, the disused shell cases stacked by the roadside and the detritus of a war fought long ago are all too familiar. Perhaps we have even become anaesthetised to their impact.

But what of the actual places where the fighting took place? Where the trenches used to be and where men had stood, in silence, awaiting the whistle that would send them into a hell on earth, the like of which we can only begin to imagine. There may be nothing to see other than the land itself, but the aura of these places is tangible and moving. I have been there, and this feeling was so intense that, rather than seek out the aftermath of conflict or the usual scars of war that are so often pictured, I photographed the fields of war and focused on the empty landscape as a pictorial strategy in order to open up a space which is designed to awaken the collective memory, stimulate the viewer to contemplate the events that occurred in these places and complete their own narrative.

*Masefield, J (1917, 2006 Ed). "The Old Front Line". Yorkshire; Pen & Sword Military

Thursday 18th October to Sunday 28th October:

The Cathedral will again host a 20ft shipping container outside on the south paving, which will be transformed into an artwork and innovative project/exhibition space. The Container is animated with exhibitions, pop up performance and workshop activity.

Journeys Festival International celebrates the creative talent of exceptional refugee and asylum seeker artists and shares the refugee experience through great art.

Returning to venues across the city for a third year, Journeys Festival International aims to bring the talent of local, national and international refugee artists to the general public - creating a positive interface with the community.

Friday 19th to Sunday 21st October between 10.00am to 5.00pm local artists Missit, Nzie and Sahara Rock team up to paint the outside of The Container with a graffiti mural inspired by the theme of ‘Welcome’. Watch the design grow and develop live over the three days.

The Invisibles’ Journey

8.30am – 6.00pm Fridays – Sundays and 8.30am – 5.30pm Saturdays.

This exhibition in the Ambulatory presents paintings, drawings and prints realised by migrants who took part in arts workshops organised and facilitated at its day centre in Calais by the charity Secours Catholique, which works with the most vulnerable members of society to support them in times of crisis. It highlights the reality of their personal stories and their lives in transit. Whilst these individuals' mobility remains constrained, their works can circulate without limits.

More details about Journeys Festival events in Portsmouth are available on their website at: http://www.journeysfestival.com/