The hidden geographies of religious creativity: place-making and material culture in West London faith communities

Abstract

Religious activity, particularly as associated with what might be called everyday organized religion, has been unconsidered in recent discussions of the geographies and policies relating to creativity, and has been almost absent in the discipline of Geography's recent 'creative turn'. We argue both that religion has been given little or no attention in academic discussions of vernacular creativity, while arts policy as it developed in the UK in the post-war period has had a strongly secular focus. This continues in more recent policies and initiatives that have sought to promote the amateur and voluntary arts sectors. We explore the reasons for these absences, before turning to examples of strongly creative practice in a range of case studies, focused in a small area of suburban west London. These show a remarkable diversity of creativity including the design, construction and transformation of buildings and spaces for religious worship, but also in ritual, performance and the everyday practices of making sacred space. Our case studies include examination of performance and material culture in a Tamil-speaking Hindu temple, and in Roman Catholic, Anglican and Pentecostal churches. These include changes to architectural form, stained glass art-work, community craft projects, and musical performance and composition. We suggest that religious creativity has a hidden significance that has become more important in the UK's increasingly diverse cities and suburbs, and that significant population groups are marginalized in creativity debates and policies that focus on the secular arts. We also suggest that there are distinctive characteristics to what we describe as 'devotional creativity', particularly in different understandings of space, practice and experience.Each year, in early August, these garlands are taken out into the streets of West Ealing, decorating the chariots of the Hindu deities as they are processed around this part of suburban London. Estimates vary, but perhaps 10,000 people participate or watch the annual Chariot Festival, the culmination of the annual 27-day Mahotsavam Festival. 2 The flower-making is only one part of a sustained effort by the Shri Kanaga Thurkkai Amman Temple (SKTA) in preparation for the festival. Other members of the Temple are involved in building and maintaining the chariots, in decorating and transforming the temple, in music-making, in cookery, and in extensive rehearsals for the rituals during the procession itself.

Social infrastructure and the public life of cities: Studying urban sociality and public spaces

“…Churches, church halls, mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras, temples, stupas. (Dwyer, Gilbert, & Shah, 2013), Gilbert, Dwyer, Ahmed, Graces, & Hyacinth, 2019), (Ehrkamp & Nagel, 2014), (Levitt, 2008).…”

Studying Diversity, Migration and Urban Multiculture

“…The recruitment for the Fabric of Faith project began from our existing research within the different faith communities, which had identified vernacular textiles as a particularly interesting example of religious creativity. Our initial research suggested a rich vein of decorative textiles produced by members of suburban faith communities for use at home, in communal and congregational religious settings, and for sale or distribution as part of faith-based, often transnational, philanthropy (see Gilbert et al 2019). Having identified groups in each of these different faith communities with interests in sewing, our intention was to bring some of them together to participate in a creative textiles project.…”

“…As a research tool, the Fabric of Faith workshops proved a very successful means to gather an understanding of how creativity was integral to different communal religious identities and devotional practices (Gilbert et al 2019), and to explore intersections of faith, gender and migration. This research was a two-fold process.…”

“…1 The project responds to work in religious studies on 'everyday' and 'lived' religion, which emphasises vernacular and quotidian material culture in understanding how faith identities are practised (Garnett and Harris 2011;McGuire 2008;Morgan 2010). It argues that a recent celebration of craft and vernacular creativity in disciplines such as geography and sociology (Edensor et al 2010;Hawkins 2016; Gauntlett 2011) has overlooked the creativity associated with faith spaces or religious identity (Ahmed and Dwyer 2017;Gilbert et al 2019). Drawing on earlier work on religious buildings in the suburbs (Dwyer et al 2013;Dwyer et al 2015), the research project identified suburbs as neglected sites of religious creative endeavour and aimed both to understand how faith communities engage creatively and meaningfully with their locality, and explore how such creative capacities might be enhanced.…”

“…2 Fabric of Faith involved six workshops in the summer of 2016 that culminated in a collective artwork that was exhibited in a series of venues in 2017. The creative project was research-led, inspired by handmade textiles in the case study places of worship, and foregrounded a shared practice of textile-making as 'devotional creativity' (see Gilbert et al 2019). As outlined below, the conceptual starting point for the project was work on co-production, creative practice and participatory research, particularly in relation to textile-focused community arts practice.…”