Pilot Case Study - St Peter Hungate Norwich, 2024

Innovative multimedia interventions for evolving sacred heritage spaces.

Why

The 15th-century St Peter Hungate was the first Church of England building to be handed over to secular use as a museum of ecclesiastical art in 1933, with temporary exhibitions before amassing its permanent collection of religious objects. The museum was closed in the 1990s; since 2009, Hungate Medieval Art has researched and showcased medieval material culture, alongside featuring contemporary art exhibitions that contribute to the overall appreciation of medieval art.

Theoretical framework

The project mobilises the philosophical notion of matter-flow (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) to answer a fundamental question: when medieval church architecture is redundant but preserved (listed-matter) and introduced back into the community, how can it be followed creatively?

Invertlight follows listed medieval matter (historical and material Gothic stained glass, liturgical artefacts, candlelit aesthetics, medieval imagery, and symbolism) and the functional change of the recent past (curated religious objects and contemporary art) to reveal the medieval heritage matter-flow as ‘living heritage.’

Methodology

Invertlight approaches the heritage condition of the space as something to work in, with and together. The space-light interventions are produced collaboratively between interdisciplinary creatives within the flux and flow of heritage that has been previously archaeologically and creatively explored since 2009. The curation entangles new matters of use in a tryptic format.