AWARD FOR RELIGIOUS ARTS AWARD FOR
John Warner Photography
Haywood Street Fresco Haywood Street Congregation Asheville, NC
Affirming sacred worth, restoring human dignity, and sabotaging the shame of poverty, the Haywood Street Fresco announces, in plaster and pigment, that you matter. Many of the world’ s great art masterpieces were inspired by religious themes and faith stories. But too often, religious art was made over in the image of those in power who were paying for the work. God was rendered European and male. Jesus was more prince than peasant. Salvation meant being upper class.
The mission and ministry of Haywood Street Congregation, located in downtown Asheville, North Carolina, aims to shed light instead on the God who abandoned heaven to take up residence as a homeless man on earth, who loitered on dirty street corners, who broke bread with outcasts and touched the untouchable. He most loved what— and who— the world had discarded.
The Haywood Street Fresco portrays Jesus’ s most enduring sermon, the Beatitudes, where he begins,“ Blessed are the poor.” Adorning the wall of the church sanctuary, the beautiful 9.5-by-27-foot fresco inspires congregants and visitors from all over the world, and reflects Haywood Street’ s mission: relationship, above all else.
JURY COMMENTS: The congregation is among‘ the least of these,’ which is this community’ s ministry. The art tells the story of this place and the people who they serve.
AWARD FOR RELIGIOUS ARTS
Sanctuary Squaremoon Studio Salt Lake City, UT
Sanctuary reexamines the fundamentals of sacred space by constructing a spatial experience in an unexpected setting. A cardboard surface designed with parametric modeling software is erected on a sidewalk to form a domed space with three side chapels. The structure’ s materials— cardboard and repurposed manufacturing waste— clearly manifest its fragility and its theme of constructing beauty from the mundane. The form of the structure reads as contemporary, while reimagining historical elements of sacred space, such as the arch and the stained-glass window. Participants complete the experience by writing directly on the surface. They respond to a prompt to share their feelings in the context of LGBTQ + lived experience and read what others have shared.
The space aspires to transcend the everyday by becoming a monument to personal struggle and triumph, as metaphorically expressed in the conversion of simple materials to something more transcendent.
The project was presented at Utah Pride, then Rexburg Pride( in Idaho), and finally at West End Church during New York City Pride Week, where it was shown in a closed-street festival and then installed in the historic church as a backdrop to the sermon.
Rick Egan
JURY COMMENTS:
This environment allows people who don’ t always fit into standard religious tropes to find a place that is accepting of their spirituality. The quality of light and color is exquisite.
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