Es Devlin unveils CONGREGATION, a new large-scale installation she has created in partnership with UK for UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, at St Mary Le Strand from 4th – 9th October 2024. The work, curated by Ekow Eshun, has been developed in collaboration with King’s College London in partnership with The Courtauld.
The work will be free and open to the public daily from 11am till 9pm with free public choral performances outside The Courtauld at 7pm each evening (except Monday) from Friday 4th October until Wednesday 9th October, to coincide with Frieze London.
Over the past four months, Es Devlin has been making large-scale chalk and charcoal portraits of 50 Londoners who have experienced forced displacement from their homelands. The drawings will be presented as a monumental projection-mapped tiered structure within the eighteenth-century church of St Mary Le Strand adjacent to The Courtauld and Somerset House. The sculptural collective portrait will be accompanied by choral music performed outside the church at dusk each evening.
Each portrait sitter is a co-author of the work. Each is depicted holding a box containing a projected animated sequence which they have invited Es Devlin to envisage. The co-authors constitute a vibrant London congregation whose roots extend across the globe to Syria, Sudan, South Sudan, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Palestine, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Eritrea, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Somalia, Tanzania, Chile, Venezuela, Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo and Germany. They range in age from 18 to 90; some arrived decades ago as small children, some arrived a few years ago on small boats.
Their voices are included in an accompanying sound sequence composed by Polyphonia. The sound installation features poetry by the Kinshasa born poet JJ Bola (also featured in the portraits) and extracts from Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Vivaldi’s original work was published 3 months prior to the consecration of St Mary le Strand in 1724 and provided the soundtrack to Devlin’s drawing sessions. It culminates in a reworking of Anton Bruckner’s sacred motet Locus Iste (This Place) which fuses the voices of The London Bulgarian Choir, The South African Cultural Gospel Choir UK, Genesis Sixteen and The Choir of King’s College London.
The projected film sequence has been created in close collaboration with film maker Ruth Hogben and choreographer Botis Seva and features dancer Joshua Shanny-Wynter.
The work is being made in response to the history of St Mary Le Strand, the first of 12 churches to be completed according to Queen Anne’s commission of 50 new churches to replace those lost in the Great Fire of London. St Mary’s Scottish Catholic architect James Gibbs practiced in secret at a time of severe persecution, weaving emblems of the exiled Catholic James of Scotland within the architecture of the building. The church is also replete with Masonic symbols and was the site of masonic gatherings whose secret congregation included both Catholic and Jewish members, in spite of public prohibition.
Devlin and curator Ekow Eshun are responding also to their research into The Courtauld’s origins, established by a Huguenot refugee, and the origins of King’s College London as a Sanctuary university which continues to provide bursaries to refugees, as well as the Strand’s history more broadly as an ancient processional route from east to west, a foundational migratory artery of the city since AD93. Ekow Eshun has written an introductory essay to the work to be featured in the accompanying Courtauld publication.
Devlin’s approach to making the portraits is rooted in a visit to Lucian Freud’s sketchbooks in the archive of the National Portrait Gallery, and in her research within The Courtauld’s collection of 500 years of portraiture from Albrecht Dürer to Frank Auerbach.
She carries out the first 45 minutes of the drawing session without any knowledge of her sitter/co-author. After 45 minutes the drawing is paused while the co-author tells Devlin their story, then the drawing resumes.
Es Devlin said:
I was moved in 2022 by the generosity of spirit with which we, as a country and as individuals, offered support to those displaced by the war in Ukraine. I wanted to understand why we have not yet been drawn to show an equivalent abundance of support to those displaced in comparable circumstances from other countries including Syria, Sudan, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Eritrea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and many more. I went to UK for UNHCR to learn more about the numbers and contexts of the 117 million people currently displaced globally, and the experiences of refugees now living in the UK.
I am beginning each portrait without knowing my sitter/co-author’s story. For the first forty-five minutes I am drawing a stranger: I am drawing not only a portrait of a stranger, but also a portrait of the assumptions I inevitably overlay: I am drawing my own perspectives and biases. I am trying to draw in order to better perceive and understand the structures of separation, the architectures of otherness that I suspect may stand between us and the porosity to others that we are capable of feeling when these structures soften.
For further info and to book free viewing slots to CONGREGATION at St Mary le Strand: unrefugees.org.uk/esdevlin-congregation/
CONGREGATIONhas been made possible with the generous support of: Bloomberg Philanthropies, Stage One, Larmac, VYV, 4Wall, Polyphonia, Treatment Studio, Ruth Hogben, Instagram, 180 Studios, Somerset House and The City of Westminster.
National Portrait Gallery Talk
Es Devlin and Ekow Eshun will discuss the work in conversation at The National Portrait Gallery.To book tickets for National Portrait Gallery Es Devlin and Ekow Eshun in conversation: HERE
Courtauld Publications and Editions The Courtauld is publishing an accompanying Catalogue which will be available to purchase at The Courtauld Gallery shop for £25, of which £20 will be donated to UK for UNHCR. The Courtauld is also issuing a set of limited edition prints and postcards of the work in support of UNHCR.
King’s College Sanctuary Programme In parallel to the installation, the Sanctuary Programme and The Policy Institute at King’s, will be holding public events and policy development discussions with leading researchers on asylum and migration policy. These will be presented as part of a wider season, Lost & Found: Stories of sanctuary and belonging, developed and curated by King’s Culture.
