2021
repurposed church chairs
baler twine
‘I will learn to sit with you and I will learn to listen’ was a plea for gentle, honest dialogue around climate change. At first glance the installation, viewed from the doorway of the Blackadder Aisle in Glasgow Cathedral, appeared to be a jumble of chairs but on closer observation it revealed itself as a field of sixty-one sculptural forms. Each form consisted of a pair of chairs, symbolising unequal power relationships among individuals, communities and nations, highlighting our communal failure to listen to one another.
For the duration of the UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, the artists rewove the rush seats on several chairs, in bright yellow baler twine. When completed, these chairs were positioned in pairs facing each other, thus enabling a conversation of equals and inviting a renewed commitment to listen to the voices of others in order to bring about change that will enable social justice and climate justice to be realised.
