THE Early Church met in the homes of members to share the meal at which Christ is received. Although first-century homes looked very different from the archetypal home as drawn by Western children, Richard Woods’s 2D cartoon of a terraced house, built to scale (7.5 metres tall) and covering the great screen at Southwark Cathedral, reminds one of the domestic origins of the eucharist and the buildings that often now house its celebration.
The Small House is the 11th in the series of annual art installations in Southwark Cathedral. Most have been during Lent, although that has not been the case for the most recent, owing to the pandemic. Several of the earlier installations have obscured the great screen, and doing so connects to some extent with the practice of veiling images in Lent. This installation temporarily covers the screen completely, something last done from 1703 to 1830 when a — then contemporary — Corinthian-style altarpiece was in place.
Woods views his small houses as disruptors of the architecture in which they sit, prompting a dialogue — in this instance with the transcendental architecture of Southwark Cathedral. One uses scale to transcend the everyday, while the other grounds one in the everyday. The house of God ultimately should be both/and. Woods also views his small houses as energisers for the surrounding architecture, making the viewer see the familiar afresh by means of the contrast between the two. In this instance, Ninian Comper’s stained-glass window of Christ in Majesty sits immediately above the roof of The Small House, blessing what it is and all that it contains.
The artist has given us a blue house to connect with the deeper blue of the Comper window, while the windows of the house are solid grey, ensuring that there is no competition with the window above, and emphasising the difference between these dual conceptions of the house of God.
The playful temporary disruption that this installation causes in the space enables rich biblical reflection on the house of God: as memorial stone at Bethel, as a tabernacle in the wilderness, and as the Temple in Jerusalem. Psalm 23 promises that we shall dwell in the house of the Lord and sit at table there; and Jesus pictures heaven as a house with many rooms, one for each of his followers.
The Dean of Southwark, the Very Revd Andrew Nunn, gives us a blessing for this small house, and prays that we will be drawn into that house of many rooms where we will dwell with God for ever. This small house is, therefore, a temporary sign of what is to come.
Until 31 August. cathedral.southwark.anglican.org