Shamiana

SHAMIANA  ... a turning point in the story of St. Paul's, Bow Common

The Background
In October 1995 a new Incumbent arrived at St. Paul's, Bow Common - Prebendary Duncan Ross - only the second priest of the 'new' church which now stands where an earlier church had stood since 1858 until it was destroyed by wartime bombing. The remarkable, visionary Vicar of Bow Common, Fr. Gresham Kirkby, had been there for 43 years (1951-1994) and it was his vision for the rebuilding of the new church which was embodied by young, inexperienced architect, Robert Maguire and equally young Designer, Keith Murray.

Only one member of the congregation in 1995 had known the previous church, all the others having come during Fr. Kirkby's time with a core group who had been there from his earliest days when the ruins of the first church still stood. The church had the smallest church electoral roll (apart from some City churches) in the Diocese of London, but what it lacked in numbers it made up for in spirit! Naturally there was nervousness about what any new priest would bring, but there was particular anxiety about what would be done to the 'Tradition' at Bow Common. Fr. Kirkby described himself as a 'socialist anarchist' and was radical in many ways. He had a phenomenal intellect and knowledge and developed a liturgical tradition during his time of experiment before the new church was built, when the congregation met in a church hall & after a time in the beighbouring St. Luke's church.  His tradition was further developed after he left the parish and there was anxiety that all of this would be swept away under the new man and whatever changes he would bring.

It was not an easy beginning for a new ministry in a parish. Conditions were imposed by the PCC upon the future Priest-in-Charge and when he declined to be further pressured, his Licensing was cancelled by the Church and, alas, very little support was given from the authorities or any mutual understanding brokered or encouraged by those who could or should have done so. It was a tough and painful time for all. Meeting together after this impasse, a way ahead was found, though with much caution on the part of the church, and the new Priest-in-Charge was duly licensed.

In a very short time the fears dissolved and trust began to be built. The fears that a 'wrecker' might be among them were rapidly allayed when the new priest was seen to respect the traditions which had been established and to practice them to the best of his ability. To honour the non-canonical tradition of the church and to build trust and confidence had been at the cost of having to dishonour the canonical undertakings made at his Licensing, at least for the first 3 years of his incumbency, and this was personally painful to the priest. However, in a short while a 'normal' ministry was established and Fr. Duncan was given real support and respect by all sections of his small congregation, both 'old guard' and newcomers alike. Numbers grew, at last children arrived in some numbers, and there were no walk-outs or protests and normal life was resumed. Change did come, but it was organic rather than imposed - a longer process but much stronger and more owned, in the long run.

A remaining anxiety showed itself, however, in the frequent use of a phrase by one or two of the original core members of the church - 'the integrity of the walls' ! By this time Duncan had come to know Keith Murray very well and he asked Keith about this phrase which he never seen used in any of Maguire and Murray's papers. Keith Murray said that both he and Bob Maguire were completely unfamiliar with it and clearly it had been created after Fr. Kirkby's time as a 'protective mantra,' a semantic amulet to keep at bay any smart ideas a new priest might have for monkeying around with their iconic building, already known far and wide and not to be misused or dishonoured!

They need not have had any such fears! Duncan Ross has come to Bow Common after 12 years in a huge Bodley church (St. Mary of Eton, Hackney Wick) in which he had been free to 'play' with configuring the church, exploring the effect of lighting and colour, with icons and candle-light and other ways of enhancing that particular barn-like space for liturgy. However, he was well aware of the radical difference between a huge Victorian Bodley space and the similarly huge modern space which was now in his care and he had no plans to violate the 'integrity of the walls.' !

An Accident, Really ..
In September 1997 Duncan was given a free ticket to an Exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in South Kensington, London. It was given by someone who worked there and, with too much to do in the parish, he was reluctant to take an afternoon off just to be polite to a friend! However, sheer embarrassment at having to face his friend again without using the ticket, led him to the V&A to see this exhibition, 'Shamiana, The Mughal Tent.'

Already reluctant, Duncan was irritated to arrive at the V & A and then have to stumble across hoardes of children all over the floor of a tent in which, for some reason, this exhibition was being held. He then made his way across all these children, drawing and painting on the floor of the large tent, set up in the Pirelli Gardens of the V & A, and found the walls of the tent bedecked with superb textile panels. These had been made by groups of women across the world - there were 56 panels in all, a selection of which had been displayed in the tent. Very soon, he realised that he had a direct connection with these works, or rather, with the woman who had been the inspiration for this collection, Shireen Akbar.

Duncan had known and worked with Shireen in his first parish, St. Dunstan's, Stepney, when he was a curate 20 years earlier and Shireen had been a community worker in the local community centre. She then moved to work at the V & A as Head of Adult and Community Education. She soon noticed that treasures, such as those of the fabulous south-east Asian collection of the Nehru Gallery, were rarely visitied by the urban communities whose heritage this was - people such as those she had worked with in Duncan's first and now last parish. She then did a most extraordinary thing in returning to these communities and personally encouraging women she knew (mostly from the sub-Continent) to do things which were outside their experience. Thus she persuaded rather restrictive husbands to let their wives go out, then she taught them how to use the buses and the Underground, and then to find their way to South Kensignton and then to enter the unfamiliar vastness of the V & A Galleries and the Nehru Gallery, in particular.

And then, to their amazement, these women discovered treasures and wonders which, in a real sense, 'belonged' to them and were their heritage. Grumpily trekking out to the V & A Tent, Duncan experienced the same impact, having himself been born in Calcutta and come as an 8 year old Anglo-Indian immigrant to the East End in 1956. It is not obvious to immigrants from many areas of the world that they may have a remarkable historical cultural heritage. It was a 'wake-up' for the immigrant women of Stepney and Bow as it was to the immigrant Vicar of Bow Common. Inspired by Shireen and by the remarkable collection in the Nehru Gallery, the women wanted to create their own contribution to their culture. On the very floor of the V & A, old art inspired new art and using the Tree of Life as a central theme, they sewed 8 textile panels which depicted their aspirations and lives and stories and personal culture. 'Shamiana' were ceremonial tents - sumptuously decorated with silken embroidered panels when used by the Mughal and Rajput courts. The only tents that many of these women had known were refugee tents. They wanted to create panels which would bedeck their kinds of tent.

The original 8 panels were displayed in the V & A and had such an extraordinary impact that the project went 'global' and a total of 56 panels were created by communities and groups of women or every possible origin, all around the world and these were then gathered in for a while to be displayed at the V & A from June - September 1997. (Selections of panels continued to go on tour right up to 2001.) Very sadly, Shireen Akbar died in March 1997 and never saw this astonishing outcome of her work and her inspiration. The Exhibition was a very real tribute to her life.

We have a Tent!
Duncan was deeply touched by the work of these women's hands, by this being part of his heritage, as also by all of this being inspired by Shireen, whom he had known and worked with early in his ministry, but chiefly because it had all had its genesis in the very area in which he had worked and was now working again. He went back to Bow Common quite shaken and moved by what he had seen, but also with some anger, it has to be said. Shireen had recognised how marginalised some people can become in big cities and how whole sections of communities could exist in small circles and never claim what is theirs in other circles, seldom or never visited by them. It remains true that many of us, growing up in places like the East End, never go to Museums or Art or Cultural Collections - even those which are pertinent to them - and even less so to places like Kensington, a 'million' miles from the East End!  So, how likely were people in the area in which this project had its genesis, ever to get to see the fruition of this project way across the other side of London?

Duncan felt that these extraordinary, moving and powerful Shamiana panels were never going to be seen except by the usual suspects who visit these galleries (he being a gallery visitor himself!) and certainly not by most of us in the East End. He wrote, therefore, to the Director of the Nehru Gallery, Dr. Deborah Swallow, expressing his views, mostly to let off steam and with little expectation of being taken seriously.  He soon learned that Dr. Swallow is a remarkable person (Director of the Courtauld Institute since 2004) and understood exactly what this disgruntled cleric was grizzling about! She asked, then, what he had in mind. Without thinking too deeply about what he was saying and using a term never used by Maguire and Murray, he rashly declared that 'We have a Tent' in Bow Common! Dr. Swallow came and had a look and took an enormously courageous and generous decision, that it was very appropriate for 30 of the panels to be displayed on the walls of our 'Tent' of a church. [Although Duncan had spoken impulsively about a 'tent,' it is actually not at all far-fetched when the roof and central altar and fabric canopy over the Sacrament Altar are considered, as well as the rhythmic billowing of the perimeter roof line over the ambulatory.]

The Challenge
Once it sank in, the prospect was frankly terrifying! The 'integrity of the Walls' put an immediate ban on even a picture being hung on the church walls let along the whole interior surface being hung with 30 large textile panels,  each about as long as the height of the lower walls. These were valued and valuable works on loan from groups of women around the world and under the care of a major British Museum which had never worked in such an unusual, unorthodox and unknown  'gallery space' before.  Nothing had been seen like this in the short history of the building - what if it really did violate the building? what if it was totally inappropriate to the panels themselves?  There was nothing to go by and, not for the first time in the years which followed, did the Incumbent feel the burden of a huge risk being taken which could discredit the church rather than serve. Six years later, even more terror attended the risk of installing 800 square feet of shimmer disk installation (85,000 metalised reflective disks) on the exterior of the church in Rose Finn-Kelcey's award winning 'Angel' - but more of that in a later section!

Of equal concern was what was happening in this part of East London at the time. On the day that Shamiana was to open (May 1998) an extreme right-wing Borough Councillor was elected for the British National Party. Racial tension was already high and here was a cleric of the wrong colour celebrating the work of women of every nationality with (as it turned out) crimson textile banners outside the church in Bengali, proclaiming, 'Shamiana, the Mughal tent.' It would not have been unthinkable for right wing extremists to use this event as a way of demonstrating how unwelcome outsiders and immigrants were in the East End. As this is written in 2011, the English Defence League is asserting the same claims in the East End. This is an issue which remains alive in our midst.

But none of this seemed ever likely to come to pass with the firm reservations of the 'old guard' still protecting their building from possible violation of purpose. If, together, we are builders of the Kingdom of God, and not just the Vicar with token nods from the congregation, then there had to be ownership of this, not just by the congregation or the Church Council or churchwardens, but by those who might have the strongest reservations about any of this. Duncan therefore committed to having those who might be the most resistant as the working group to explore this new posibility and if they were, in the end, to turn down such an idea then it would not happen. These were they who faced the biggest challenge in allowing the church to be used in such a new way and who would therefore take the biggest 'risk', and not some new boy at the helm!

Without them on board, this would simply be imposition. The new parish priest was strongly advised in high places to impose a new order and sweep away the old order, right at the beginning of his ministry here, as a way of dealing with so much opposition. He was regarded as weak for not doing so by so many other incumbents at the time. However, he tries to live by a theology of Church which strives and struggles to include in as many as possible, however awkward and difficult that may be, rather than to do cosmetic surgery on the Body of Christ and make something which is made more in our image than in the Image of the Christ who made and loves and has a saving purpose, even for awkward customers!

Shamiana Comes to Bow Common
Huge courage was shown and risk faced by the small group of the 'old guard' listening carefully to how these works had come to be - the work of ordinary people from our own community and from similar communities all over the world - this was 'people's art,' celebrating the astonishing and extraordinary creativity of 'ordinary' people. They went on visits to the V & A. Keith Murray joined us, as advisor on the 'integrity of the walls'. The very people who had felt it so necessary to defend their tradition and their iconic building were now choosing to face the enormous risk of the unknown. Such was the power of these extraordinary works and the stories behind them, and such was their courage and compassion, that this group 'got it,' and Dr. Swallow's invitation could be taken up! 

One of the marks of Gresham Kirkby's time in the parish, and which was fully espoused by those who gathered around him in Bow Common in those early days, was a passionate concern for the 'little people' of God. Justice and the fair treatment of the powerless and the voiceless was always on their active agenda as were global issues such as nuclear disarmament and resistance against oppressive regimes. These were passionate and compassionate people who fully understood what this was all about and it is really a credit to them that the church has discovered itself in so many new ways. Had they said 'no' to this, it would not have happened.

One of Duncan's central principles was that we would do this on our own and even though we were a poor parish in a very poor area, we would raise our own funding and not take any support from the V & A. In fact, through the heavy sale of postcards, we actually made money for the V & A! In those days £15,000 was an enormous sum, but by God's Grace, good luck and smooth talking, the Incumbent raised that sum.  It paid, among other things, for two security guards to be on duty every day for the duration of the exhibition. With a BNP Councillor elected for the nearby Isle of Dogs on the opening night and with a certain confidence amongst the extreme right wing, we needed to offer a very solid sign of assurance both to the V & A and to those whose work this was. They were two lovely men and served us well. There were no incidents at all and as huge numbers of people began to visit the exhibition, any of ill intent would have been heavily outnumbered in any case!

A large part of the budget was raised to honour the 'Shamiana Principle' which had been demonstrated on the floor of the V & A when our local women, inspired by art, created their own art. Thus we bought in textile tutors of high calibre to run workshops throughout the duration of the exhibition. High quality silk, threads, silk and fabric paints, canvas and other materials were also bought. Every visitor to the exhibition had the opportunity to learn a little about textile techniques and were able to create a small panel to take away - art inspired art.  Workshops from schools, groups of elders, community groups and others would easily find ample space in the church to create their art (without any of the seating needing to be moved) and would all be tutored and create small panels to take away. 

Thus, at a spectacular opening 'Private View' on 7th May 1998 Shamiana came to Bow Common. The Director of the V & A teamed up with the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Stepney (now Archbishop of York) to open the exhibition and all expressed astonishment at what a natural space the church was for art and accompanying activities. Deep down somewhere, the Incumbent had guessed that this might be so but the reality was hugely surprising to him and the relief was inexpressible, after so many risks being taken and faced. The most gratifying part of all of this was to see those for whom this had been a cautiously guarded space, through their own courage, seeing whole new capabilities and a sheer genius in their cherished building. Fr. Kirkby was there for the opening night and approved - which was a great relief! Some weeks into the exhibition, one Saturday morning, unbeknown at first to the Incumbent, Robert Maguire called in and was moved to tears to discover what his remarkable building was capable of.

Over the following weeks, up to the closure of the exhibition on 31st May 1998 numbers grew and grew as word got around, not only that this was an exhibition not to be missed, but that there was this wonderful display space in the Borough which seemed to have been built for such things. The section on 'Inclusive Space' under this tab gives an account of why, perhaps, this remarkable building works so well for so many different uses.  A few of these uses are outlined in the sections which follow.

However, it was Shamiana which first opened our eyes to the many possibilities for this remarkable building, and it all happened, really, by accident!

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