Cathedra Domine

here it is at long last.

Rosy Harray
2006
Cathedra Domine
6m x 8m x 5m high
oxidised steel rod

Artist Statement:

A skeletal frame stands quietly defiant. Branches lick its gothic tracery. The illusive rusted steel retreats into its surrounding. From a distance it could easily be overlooked, as it forces no contention. A drawing in space it breaks boundaries of solidity and ethereality. There is nowhere to stand and passively look at the whole, and its not until one is close to it that is emerges from space. It is in the experience of walking through it where the encounter of the work takes place.

A critical look at the state of Christianity. I am dealing with stereotypes that exist with the label ‘Christian’ because of conventions that have been established in the church over history. Wanting to undo some of these conventions by exposing the hierarchal, hypocritical and political systems that are found within the architecture and religiosity of Christianity. I have taken the architectural structure of the medieval cathedral, as a symbol for Christianity; it provides a base for the conceptual symbolism in my work to stem from.

The word cathedral derives from the Greek word cathedra; this translates as seat. It refers to the presence of the bishop’s chair or throne. This is the first relevant hierarchy found in this system. The seat marks the place set aside in the prominent church of the diocese[1] for the head of that diocese and is a major symbol of authority. It is an indication of power within the institution that displaces God from his own throne.

I have removed all the peripheral structures of the Catholic cathedral by discarding all the statues, alters to saints, side chapels, the confessional; things that indicate a hierarchy to reach God. In medieval cathedrals, excess is the key. These magnificent cathedrals that are said to have been built to honour God were most often done at the expense and spiritual manipulation of the people. I’ve taken away the excessive display of wealth where material wealth was an indication of spiritual wealth, and I’ve constructed a space that is a more ‘personal’ size.

The skeleton framework is a way of ‘taking down the walls’ of the church. To strip back the excessiveness, expose it and provide a transparency that makes it vulnerable. A transparent church does several things; most inherently it has the capacity to contain light. A church that has transparent walls allows the people on the outside to see in and provide accountabilty. This deals with issues of hypocrisy that arise when the church hides behind their religion, to conceal their corruption or to justify the things they do. A church without walls keeps those inside the church aware of what is happening outside. Sometimes those inside religion become unaware of the reality that is happening outside them.

The cathedral is a structure that is solid yet ethereal it has the ability to speak of the abstract concepts of light and transparency, but also of darkness and solidity. It is through a gothic framework that I can place this contradiction. The gothic as a genre, appeals to the mysterious and what is unknown; it is a fine balance of oppositions. It shows ‘the ugliness’ and ‘the beauty’ of things that appeal to the irrational. It has the ability to go against logic, which is exactly what the realm of the spiritual is. It deals with the liminal, the place that is between what is physical and what is spiritual. The seen and unseen.

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[1] The district or churches under the jurisdiction of a bishop

putting her up

The making of:

ok so now that i finally have the time, i can upload some pics of my cathedral in the making
its taken me 14 weeks to make this baby, twice as long as i had thought!!! always the way though isnt it!

when i got back to nz i did a few experiments with materials, because origianlly i wanted to make this structure in fibreglass. so glad i didnt though!! way too toxic and such a shitty, frustrating material to work with.

so instead its made from steel rod, majority 8mm
had to write heaps of proposals for sponsership and grants, which mostly ammounted to nothing.
did get some funding from the polytech grant though.

ive worked so many hours on this project, but i think its been worth it.

I'm so excited, and i just cant hide it!!

wow!!! i have had a busy week or so. after kinda humming and haaing about wether or not it was a good idea or bad idea to make a whole cathedral structure, i came to a decision that i would just do it.
the thing i didnt want to do was simply reconstruct a cathedral and that be it. where was the concept in just copying what already existed even if i was changing the material used and making a skeleton of it. but in actual fact if i was going to be 'just' reconstructing a cathedral, it wouldnt at all 'be it' , because it is merely the set for a sound/video piece and is only one part of what will make the whole.
so did some initial drawings and played around with some differnt floor plans. because i think this is the most important. how the vaults will look when all the arches cross each other. and i have been trying out differnt 'window' designs at the same time as making a wire model and a lifesize maquette of one 'vault section'
so this is the floor plan, with all the arches drawn in. i think it looks cool!! im cant wait to start building it
detail being added to the vault














here it is; 5m high. this is one 'vault section' of my proposed cathdral. a lifesize maquette, with potential detail included. below is a photo with myself so you can see the scale relationship to person size.


this is the wire maquette i made this past week.
i think its the most fun thing ive made here. it gave me a lot of excitement and energy to do a lot of prep/design work.
Its made at a scale of 1:20
im very excited about the potential of it.

It's going to be COLOSSAL!!!
and a stack of work,
im not sure what im getting myself into,
but then i was never one to make things easy for myself. Never!





























these photos below are of the model painted black. I'm playing with aperture, and lighting and shadow. love it!!!












oh this just gets better and better!! here i have painted the model white, and photographed it in a glossy white box, love the colours, love the light and dark, love the way it reflects at the bottom. its not hanging and yet its not grounded either. love it!!



well what i have in fact done, is not copy any existing cathedral. but made my own structure based on some of the elements of existing cathedrals and also how the new jerusalem is described in revelations.
these elements include, the rose windows, and vaults, the nave, a 'holy number' of pillars. three entrances at each north, south, west, east side etc
and while this skeleton may still contain a lot of detail, and looks complex, it actually has been simplified a reasonable amount from what an existing cathedral contains.
ive done away with all side chapels and alters to the saints. also flying buttresses. and the extra parts of the building you find in addition to the basic cross shape.
ive also not included a bell tower or spire, i orginally wanted to becuase they can be very cool, but for some reason now it makes sense not to. but im not sure why yet.

yay!!! i can't wait to start making this, this is what i love!!!

why does a building have to be a place of worship?

Good Question.
Short answer: it doesn't
Long answer: historically the temple or the synagogue, has been the place of worship. It was the place where the presence of God resided. Its where the people went to pray and worship, its where the high priests met with God and gave sacrifices. where they pleaded on behalf of the people for God's forgiveness.

With the incarnation of Jesus and the new covenant that he created by conquering death, the sacrifices were no longer necessary and everyone, not only the high priests, are able to converse with God. God no longer was confined to the holy of holies in the temple but his presence is with us wherever we go. He lives in us, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
And yet for centuries, we still continue to worship in buildings built specifically. I dont think that in itself is a bad thing. It is good for a community of Christ to have a place they can go to fellowship with each other and praise God as a collective.

Cathedrals are said to have been built to honour God, built with riches and magnificence so show the majesty of God. They wanted to House of God to be fitting for their King. However this was often done at the expense of the people, of the uneducated and the lower class. people were told they had to pay money and confess their sins in order to go to heaven, if the scriptures were not made available to the people and they in fact couldn't read anyway how were they to know that al that was required was a confession of sins and a belief in their heart that Jesus is Lord over all and they would be saved. but it was this money that provided for a lot of the cathedrals to be erected. its a contradiction that money was gained by dishonesty was used to build a place that honoured God. To communicate the power and majesty of God to an uneducated population through an excessive display of wealth where material wealth showed spiritual spirituality is more than a bit hypocritical.

These things aside, the buildings still provide a place of worship. And i have been in a few of these cathedrals where there are people worshipping in sincerity and the presence of God can be felt there. It is true of a church building where the ways of the world are not infiltrating the space, that it is easier to meet with God there.

However that is not to say that we should only be worshipping in these places.
I am an advocate of the concept of having a church without walls. And that is kind of where my conceptual idea orginated from. I wanted to make a transparent church. Where the worshippers on the inside were aware of what was going on outside them, this deals with issues of christians sometimes being too focused on looking upward and never on looking outward.
And the people on the outside can see what is going on inside, this deals with issues of hypocrisy, where sometimes the church hides behind their walls and their religion, to hide their corruption or to justify the things they do.

The way that my work is developing, and thinking about these issues in how i should present this as an installation, it would seem that the best way to show it is to hang it outdoors. As much as i want people to walk through it, in order to experience something, i can't force them, just like i can't force Jesus onto anyone. but i can encourage it.
It needs to hang outside because to install it in a room would deny the concepts of breaking down the walls. And i would love to have it integrating into nature. to be in nature but not of nature.

so this work, while it is imitating the structure of the place of worship, is not being made to create another place of worship, but it commenting on the conventions that these places of worship have propogated.

perhaps.... im still working on it

how to present installation??

I want my work to be something that forcs the viewer inside it, so that the option for just viewing it passivly from the outside is not given.

because it needs to be experienced.

but i dont want it in a room either becuase its too closed. and it loses the transparent nature.
and i want it to find an affintity with nature.

and im having issues with the way the work will be represented once its on film. because that automatically gives the viewer a place to view the work, it creates a distance from the work.

maybe i could box in the structure and have the film projected from one end to the other.
and keep the 'roof' open so that theres still a relationship between the earth and the sky.

but that still makes it hiding.
maybe part of it is boxed....

dang this is hard

5m high in the sky

well this is as far as ive got with the 5m high palstic rope arches...
i made 16 arches and it only made three vaults. to start with i think they looked really cool, and were blowing about in the wind, really free.
more so the arches that are by themselves
when the vaults are all joined together though it doesnt work so well anymore.
its like an in between stage, it either has to be minimal, or it has to be over the top. i think.

well i like the way the lines sit in the sky. its like drawing in space.
sculpting space. dividing space.
in a way it creates an illusion, because it seems like the space has been flattened,it breaks down the perspective. making the 3d space seem 2d, which is a contrast to what a lot of traditional drawing is, on a 2d surface with the intention of making it 3d.

oh and right at the bottom of these pics is the rose window i made.
i love it!!
the cathedral set i make wil definitely have lots of these and other elaborate detail.

and below that is the small wire maquette i made before i started on the plastic. i like it because the wire is rigid, but still flexible, so it can hold the shape, but has freedom. theres a solidity about it.