HEART by German artist Michael Pendry makes its UK debut at St Giles’ Cathedral this weekend.
The installation in the central part of the High Kirk is part of the city’s Burns&Beyond Festival and also commemorates St Giles’ 900th, the anniversary of the founding of the Cathedral.
Pendry brought his stunning installation Les Colombes to the Cathedral in 2022, and he has now created a new, three-dimensional, five-metre tall work that represents the human heart in its most romantic form.
HEART will light up the cathedral with the very symbol of life itself and will transform the space with a ticketed evening illumination and soundscape for visitors. The work changes, pulsates, throbs, burns and sometimes bleeds, and can be seen at St Giles’ Cathedral from Friday 26 January to Sunday 11 February 2024.
We met Michael earlier this week when he was just setting the installation up.
Michael said: “I’m so pleased to be returning to Edinburgh and St. Giles’ Cathedral with HEART, which represents a symbol for life in all its fullness, a symbol of being human, love and pain, primary and genuine in a tech-focused world. This heart will keep changing – because it is change that keeps it alive. I look forward to the people of Edinburgh enjoying the experience. In current times full of uncertainties, climate change and war, we need to remind us what life is about, and the importance of showing empathy, understanding, embracing the different and, at the end of the day, showing more heart. Art can make a change, and our role as artists is to spread some light, giving people hope and showing them what the world can also be despite of all the turmoil of our fast, hard and cold everyday life.’’
Penny Docherty and Alan Thomson, Directors of Unique Events who produce Burns&Beyond, said: “What better symbol for the Burns&Beyond Festival, which takes its inspiration from Rabbie Burns and promotes ‘Luv, Hope and Kindness’, than a heart. We are delighted to welcome Michael Pendry back to Edinburgh and to St Giles’ to help us celebrate this most significant of anniversaries.”
Sarah Phemister Head of Heritage and Culture at St Giles’ Cathedral, said “As St Giles’ Cathedral heads into its 900th year in 2024, we are delighted to welcome Michael Pendry back to the cathedral with his installation HEART. We are excited to be collaborating with Unique Events once again and cannot wait to welcome visitors from near and far.”
HEART will be on show at St Giles’ Cathedral from Friday 26 January to Sunday 11 February. Tickets for the evening illumination and soundscape are priced at £5, and can be found, together with details of all the events in the Burns&Beyond programme which is on now, at www.burnsandbeyond.com
HEART by Michael Pendry is presented in partnership by the Burns&Beyond Festival and St. Giles’ 900 with support from the City of Edinburgh Council.
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Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
