Photo story: Tactile

Part of the artist Lou Baker’s installation of red knitting, Life/Blood, at Dore Abbey, in Abbey Dore, Herefordshire, until 31 October. The installation is one among the “Vessel” trail of seven artworks in distant rural churches near the Black Mountains, between Usk and Hay-on-Wye, curated by Jacquiline Creswell and organised by Art and Christianity in collaboration with Friends of Friendless Churches. The theme of “Vessel” goals to reference “bodies, boats, secretions and receptacles”; each of the artworks is sited in relationship to the immediate landscape and the architectural fabric of the church. Visitors are encouraged to interact with the artworks. One Cornish visitor said that her husband, who has sight loss, was in a position to benefit from the trail of art as a series of tactile pieces. Speaking of Life/Blood, Ms Creswell said: “The chalice which holds wine representing the blood of Christ is a central Christian ritual explored by Lou Baker at Dore Abbey. Lou’s striking site-responsive installation threads her red knitted wool sculpture through the architecture of the elegant apse on the east end of the Cistercian Abbey, transforming the location. Life/Blood also weaves itself across the broken pieces of masonry currently stored among the many pillars, winding and knitting the weather together like a network of blood vessels pumping life back into the stone graveyard”

artandchristianity.org