Image courtesy of the artist.
Marking Space
(2025)
[Imitation gold, iroko]
Though belonging to the seemingly distinct worlds of quantum physics and religion, the two structures that inspired the sculpture Marking Space were both designed to help us to make sense of the universe that we find ourselves living in.
The first structure that inspired this artwork is the scientific apparatus used in the “double-slit” experiment – an apparatus used in physics to understand the behaviour of waves and matter. The “double-slit” experiment involves passing waves (e.g. light) or matter (e.g. atoms or particles) through two slits in a diffraction apparatus. Analysis of the resulting diffraction pattern produced as result of passing the waves or matter through the two openings in the apparatus provides insight into the formation of the world around us. The second and most explicitly referenced structure that inspired this artwork, is The Garden Chapel of St Werburgh – a Russian Orthodox chapel built from a garden shed that the artist’s Granny founded in the back garden of her semi-detached home. By making marks in space, both diffraction apparatuses used in the “double-slit” experiment and the four flat packed walls that created The Garden Chapel of St Werburgh make marks in space with the intention of better understanding the world.
Marking Space places the eight thresholds that marked the passage through from the street outside the artist’s Granny’s house to The Garden Chapel of St Werburgh’s iconostasis in succession. The sculpture marks the passage through the carport, the front door, the hallway door, the sitting room door, the French doors, under the washing line, through the shed door, and to the chapel’s iconostasis – itself another threshold, another opening, another portal promising understanding of the universe.
Symbolic of the sacred and the elemental, positioned in sequence this series of portals evokes spiritual passages of transformation, like the many pilgrimage routes leading to the cathedral, as well as functioning as a kind of life-sized diffraction apparatus for audiences to explore, thereby enacting their own determination of the significance of space. You are invited to think of the passage through this series of openings as a reminder of how space can be transformed and rationalised through mark-making processes, be that mark making that determines a space as sacred, or marks made by an apparatus that can make the hidden atomic workings of the universe legible.
Whilst you are welcome to explore the sculpture and walk through and around it, please do not touch the sculpture itself.
The creation of this artwork was kindly supported by Into the Light and Durham University, with special thanks to Howarth Bespoke, and fellow members of the 2025 Durham Creative Community Fellows cohort.
Into the Light is delivered by Durham County Council in partnership with Beamish Museum, The Bowes Museum, Durham University, Ensemble ‘84, The Forge, No More Nowt, Northern Heartlands and TIN Arts. It is funded by Durham County Council, the National Lottery through Arts Council England, the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) and Durham University.
[Imitation gold, iroko]
Though belonging to the seemingly distinct worlds of quantum physics and religion, the two structures that inspired the sculpture Marking Space were both designed to help us to make sense of the universe that we find ourselves living in.
The first structure that inspired this artwork is the scientific apparatus used in the “double-slit” experiment – an apparatus used in physics to understand the behaviour of waves and matter. The “double-slit” experiment involves passing waves (e.g. light) or matter (e.g. atoms or particles) through two slits in a diffraction apparatus. Analysis of the resulting diffraction pattern produced as result of passing the waves or matter through the two openings in the apparatus provides insight into the formation of the world around us. The second and most explicitly referenced structure that inspired this artwork, is The Garden Chapel of St Werburgh – a Russian Orthodox chapel built from a garden shed that the artist’s Granny founded in the back garden of her semi-detached home. By making marks in space, both diffraction apparatuses used in the “double-slit” experiment and the four flat packed walls that created The Garden Chapel of St Werburgh make marks in space with the intention of better understanding the world.
Marking Space places the eight thresholds that marked the passage through from the street outside the artist’s Granny’s house to The Garden Chapel of St Werburgh’s iconostasis in succession. The sculpture marks the passage through the carport, the front door, the hallway door, the sitting room door, the French doors, under the washing line, through the shed door, and to the chapel’s iconostasis – itself another threshold, another opening, another portal promising understanding of the universe.
Symbolic of the sacred and the elemental, positioned in sequence this series of portals evokes spiritual passages of transformation, like the many pilgrimage routes leading to the cathedral, as well as functioning as a kind of life-sized diffraction apparatus for audiences to explore, thereby enacting their own determination of the significance of space. You are invited to think of the passage through this series of openings as a reminder of how space can be transformed and rationalised through mark-making processes, be that mark making that determines a space as sacred, or marks made by an apparatus that can make the hidden atomic workings of the universe legible.
Whilst you are welcome to explore the sculpture and walk through and around it, please do not touch the sculpture itself.
The creation of this artwork was kindly supported by Into the Light and Durham University, with special thanks to Howarth Bespoke, and fellow members of the 2025 Durham Creative Community Fellows cohort.
Into the Light is delivered by Durham County Council in partnership with Beamish Museum, The Bowes Museum, Durham University, Ensemble ‘84, The Forge, No More Nowt, Northern Heartlands and TIN Arts. It is funded by Durham County Council, the National Lottery through Arts Council England, the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) and Durham University.
Image credit: Kevin Edworthy