The Study Centre's Commissioned Tapestries

The tapestries by Susan Morris and Mary Lum were commissioned for the Study Centre and curated by Vivien Lovell of Modus Operandi. These contemporary art commissions are the latest additions of pieces sought out by St John's to bring meaningful works of art into the college.

Curator, Vivien Lovell reflects, "There is a long tradition of art for architecture at St John’s, an early example being William Laud’s invitation to Hubert Le Sueur in 1633 to create the statues of Charles 1 and Queen Henrietta Maria for the Canterbury Quadrangle. In recent decades, the architecture of the Garden and Kendrew Quadrangles designed by MacCormac Jamieson Prichard and the new Library and Study Centre by Wright & Wright has allowed artists to create site-specific works inspired by their context. This approach has been led by the vision of the College’s presidents, bursars and art panel members, and supported by its architects - who have generously afforded opportunities for other creative minds."

Susan Morris’s woven tapestry series ‘Silence (on Prepared Loom)’ for the new Library & Study Centre weaves sound into a six jacquard pieces with threads of silk, cotton, and polyester. Sharing insight on her creative process, Morris states, "These tapestries were woven directly from a 50-minute sound recording made in the garden on the other side of Sprott’s Wall, a boundary shared between the garden and the library. Through the application of a specially written script, the recorded sound was configured to the 'score' for John Cage's 1952 Lecture on Nothing, a spoken word performance that has silence at its core. The garden itself is visible through the single window in the second bay of the reading room, and can be regarded as part of the overall piece."

Outside the Laudian Library hangs Mary Lum's tapestry, St John's Primer. Sharing her artistic vision, Lum states that her work is "an introduction to the St John’s library collection of rare books and manuscripts, comprising fragments of texts and symbols from many languages, fields of study, cultures and time periods. The tapestry speaks to the importance of the written word, how texts are put together, how they endure over time, and how meaning can be lost, transformed, or expanded. It invites viewers to read in individual ways that prioritize how language looks, as well as what it says."

According to Lovell, together the two artists' works present "an important addition to the collection of notable contemporary artworks for the College, which include Kirsty Brook’s ‘Otranto Passage Artwork’ and Susanna Heron’s ‘Stone Drawing’ both of which were commissioned as part of the first phase of the New Library. The contemporary art collection includes earlier commissions by Wendy Ramshaw, Alexander Beleschenko, Langlands & Bell and Ian Monroe."