A Festival celebrating the spirit of togetherness of people across West and East Sussex throughout the pandemic is set to open at Chichester Cathedral. The Festival will feature the successful entries to the #SussexTogether Festival of the Arts which was launched in the summer by Chichester Cathedral and Sussex Newspapers.
#SussexTogether invited people across the county to showcase their creative efforts, in visual arts, creative writing or poetry, with the aim of capturing the spirit of togetherness which has seen us through the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Festival will open following All Souls on Monday 2nd November when we remember those we have lost. The Cathedral bells will chime in remembrance, and ring in the Festival on the 3rd. It will be an opportunity for both reflection, and a celebration of how the people of Sussex responded to the pandemic.
Bestselling novelist and playwright Kate Mosse, who lives in Chichester, is one of the Festival’s Patrons, along with The Bishop of Chichester, The Right Reverend Dr Martin Warner. Bishop Martin said:
“The arts offer ways for us to be together and ways to find things that unite us. Through the arts we can find areas where we can come together safely to find common experience and to find things with a common language… to find things which sometimes words cannot express.
For us as Christians the use of the arts has been integral to our practice, to our Christian form of worship. Music and drama and the visual arts impact in terms of our buildings and stained glass windows and textiles.
It all comes into worship where it speaks to us about a sense of dimension which cannot be quantified, which defines what gives life meaning, the journey, the questions of grief and death and the life-giving virtue of hope.
All of these things emerge as narratives as part of the story that the churches and faith try to tell.
The hope is that through art we might perhaps start to understand the experience that we have all been through – “even if only to understand our own emotions, what it means for us and how others feel. And that’s why the arts are so important.”
The Chancellor of Chichester Cathedral, The Reverend Canon Dan Inman, was instrumental in setting up the Festival along with Sussex Newspapers’ Phil Hewitt. The Chancellor said:
“The Festival is a celebration of all that is good, and hopeful and beautiful, which speaks to us of how we have endured through a challenging year in 2020. We look forward to welcoming everyone to enjoy the works on display.”
The works featured will also be presented as a virtual Festival online via the Cathedral’s website.
The Festival will be open to the public from Tuesday 3rd to Tuesday 17th November, 10.00am – 4.00pm (excluding Sundays), located in the South Transept. Entry to the Cathedral is free of charge, however donations are welcome.