17-23 June: Refugee week.

Refugee Week 2024

Home
An Interactive Exhibition
Mon 17 – Sun 23 June, in the Chapter House, Canterbury Cathedral.

This post is based on a notice from Canterbury Cathedral’s website.

During this week of focus on the plight of refugees, we invite you to explore what ‘home’ means to you and to those who have had to leave their own homes as a result of war, violence, oppression and climate change.

Six years ago the Cathedral welcomed an installation entitled ‘Suspended’. These garments were hanging above the congregation in the nave; they came from refugees on the Isle of Lesbos or the camps around Calais; clothes they were glad to discard when they were offered a clean change. Their lives have been suspended between their old homes, destroyed or stolen, and who knows what future.

Today we are invited to experience how these refugees have come to create a new home here in Canterbury, and the cultural richness that they have brought with them.

Organised and devised by the Refugee Project Board including:
Kent Refugee Action Network, the Social Justice Network of the Diocese and
Canterbury Cathedral.

2 May: Suspended

When I went to the Cathedral yesterday I found myself in the nave rather than the crypt. It was still early in the day; the guides and welcomers were just arriving, tidying up their desks and welcoming each other. There were the usual builders’ noises, and someone testing organ pipes: in short, there was the usual silence!

I had time to sit by the font and contemplate the installation ‘Suspended’. The garments hanging above the congregation came from refugees on the Isle of Lesbos or the camps around Calais; clothes they were glad to discard when they were offered a clean change. I hope they found something they liked to wear! Their lives have been suspended between their old homes, destroyed or stolen, and who knows what future.

There the clothes hang, reminding us that these refugees are sisters and brothers of ours, thrown on very hard times, as were others – including perhaps their grandparents – seventy years ago when Pope Pius XII wrote the words we read here yesterday.

Let us follow his call, and pray for peace, and support those who support the refugees.

MMB