I have been wanting to venture into the Bombed-out church (Church of St. Luke, hit by a incendiary bomb in 1941) ever since I have come to Liverpool but never had a chance till now. I have found it interesting how such an important religious building could be destroyed by the very same species who created the belief, then recycled into a public space for the arts.
The building itself is incredible. The grand, roofless structure that surrounds the internal garden, still holds on to the charred wood framing along the brickwork. The stone floors and platforms where vicars once stood and newlyweds sauntered hand in hand, are now being re-captured by nature; grass sprouting, flowers blossoming and weeds climbing.
The building itself is incredible. The grand, roofless structure that surrounds the internal garden, still holds on to the charred wood framing along the brickwork. The stone floors and platforms where vicars once stood and newlyweds sauntered hand in hand, are now being re-captured by nature; grass sprouting, flowers blossoming and weeds climbing.
As I entered, admiring the surrounding walls, my next sensation was greeted by the atmospheric music playing from the speakers hidden away behind a gate. I didn’t catch the name of the artist, though the sounds were very relevant to the mood within the church.
The visuals however, I found were very unusual considering the site that they were being displayed. Fab-collective’s Giraffe series was an exploration of laughter and featured a series of photographs inspired to make the viewer smile and laugh. They included pictures of elderly women giggling together, babies chuckling and people generally having fun. To give them credit, I did find myself cracking a smile or two while the gloomy rain fell on my unsheltered head, but I didn’t feel they had much relevance being presented in such a pristine gallery-style on the decaying, weathered brickwork.
I also found a lot of the other work there rather irrelevant and uninteresting. The only real appropriate piece I saw was Carolyn Shepherd’s sculpture, Survival. This was a structure made from burnt wood, salvaged from industrial sites. It is a focus on the textural characteristics of the splitting wood which has charred on the fire. Its gate-like structure suggests it’s a site-specific piece, featuring an entrance and restrictive walls, much like the church itself.
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