HALF-TERM holiday visitors to Salisbury Cathedral Close stop dead in their tracks as a solo rendition of “Abide with me” emanates from one of the statues in front of the 13th-century singing gallery.
Young families, older couples, and other visitors and passers-by become even more transfixed as additional statues above the west door join in the heartfelt hymn that has become part of popular culture. When the entire choir of nine stone figures of saints sing in unison for the finale, the Close comes to a standstill, and onlookers stare up at the singing gallery open-mouthed.
Abide With Me, by the sound and installation artist Emeka Ogboh, is one of eight artworks in Salisbury Cathedral’s exhibition “Joyful Noise”, which runs until the end of the autumn. It is part of a year-long programme on the theme.
Mollie Barnes, visual-arts curator at the cathedral, says that the arts programme works as a coherent whole around chosen themes, and this year’s is taken from the first verse of Psalm 100: “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.” The cathedral’s theming panel decide the annual direction, she says. “Each year, the cathedral decides on a cathedral-wide theme. This is the second year, following a successful first year with ‘Living Water’.”
The exhibition is funded through grants, donations, and sponsorships. A programme of associated free and paid talks, tours, and events also generates income. Other events include talks such as “Contemplative Listening to a Noisy World”, the practice of silence in the Christian tradition, and a screening of The Sound of Music.
The cathedral team says that “Joyful Noise” reimagines “the biblical call to ‘make a joyful noise unto the Lord’ as a modern look at how sound can unite, inspire and celebrate”. Included in the theme are “language, music, and the human voice, as well as clapping, singing, dancing, spoken prayer, and even the sounds of nature”.
For Abide With Me, Ogboh worked with David Halls, the cathedral’s director of music, on the choice of hymn and digital recording of the choir. The hymn is performed four times a day, and each performance will be different.
The multi-channel installation also highlights the history of the singing gallery, where in medieval times, on Palm Sunday, when chanted through the openings as the great procession approached the west front. The openings were blocked up with stone in 1820, and the Gothic-like statues of saints were installed in 1868.
Restoration work on the west front in the 1990s allowed stone blocking the quatrefoils to be replaced with removable wooden inserts. More apparent from within the cathedral than outside, where they are just visible beneath the statues, the quatrefoils present a historic point of connection between the world outside the cathedral and the life within.
THE artworks in “Joyful Noise” are included in the cathedral’s entrance fee, but three works, including Abide With Me can be enjoyed for free outside. As visitors come into the Close, work by arguably the most familiar artist in the exhibition, Phyllida Barlow, is on display to their right on the lawn outside Mompesson House. Managed by the National Trust, Mompesson is a picture-perfect early-18th-century Queen Anne townhouse, which featured in the 1995 film version of Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility.
Martin CookClassified Digits by Christine Sun Kim
Barlow’s art is famed for disrupting its environment by bringing everyday materials into prestigious settings. Rising six metres from the ground, Untitled: Megaphone (2014) looks as if it is made of black metal, but is actually constructed from chicken wire and expanding foam. Installed to point towards the cathedral spire, the giant, dark megaphone suggests the idea of a call, reaching out to invite a response.
At the base of the piece, a series of angled cubes and planes offers Barlow’s riposte to the usually poised and polished character of public sculpture. The base is also tantalisingly climbable, but, when we met near the midpoint of half-term, no visitor had yet attempted an ascent. Ms Barnes is hopeful that signage and the vigilance of cathedral will deter attempts over the school holidays.
The cathedral team hope that the exhibition will attract and engage with a wider audience, who often bring different expectations and experiences to a visitor attraction. The art exhibitions are aimed at helping the cathedral to “express and celebrate creativity, share the gospel in fresh and engaging ways, invite people to explore our shared humanity, and attract new and returning visitors to the cathedral”. Programming of this kind has been shown to be a key driver of new and repeat visits. “We know from research around 2025’s art exhibition that thousands of visitors came at least partly to see it,” the cathedral team say.
A newly commissioned neon text piece by Tim Etchells, Songs, is positioned over the north porch. The illuminated red text — “Songs about being free” — points to freedom as a hope helping to drive action. The artist says that he wants to draw attention to the plight of the many people who live without security, safety, or the ability to make choices. Songs makes the case for the link between freedom and peace, and experiencing lasting joy.
Inside the cathedral is Jesus Loves Me, a sculptural group by Sokari Douglas Camp. The London-based artist was born in the Niger Delta, an area of oil extraction. Previous work includes Battle Bus: Living memorial for Ken Sara-Wiwo (2006), a full-scale replica of a Nigerian steel bus, created as a monument to the late Niger Delta writer and activist.
The artist was also shortlisted for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. The three steel figures of Jesus Loves Me were inspired by the West African Christian communities of south-east London and the vibrant culture of Pentecostal worship.
Observing a woman struggling to get out of her car because of the height of her headdress brough about the genesis of a figure with an elaborately tall, steel headdress and pistachio-green skirt, with a print of Jesus’s face applied to the steel. The artist describes the group, who are expressing their belief and belonging through carefully presented clothing, as “Vogueing Christians”.
IN THE Chapel of St Lawrence, Yuri Suzuki’s sound sculpture UTOOTO (2025) is a structure of pipes and primary-coloured horn shapes. The piece echoes the pipes of the organ near by and the outline of the cathedral spire. The grid shape of the metal pipes also evokes the martyrdom of the saint, who was put to death on a griddle. In Japanese, uto uto means the state of drifting between wakefulness and sleep, and in Okinawa prayer utouto means reverence.
The chapel is used for funerals. Ms Barnes says that one of the unique characteristics of displaying art in a working cathedral is being mindful of the part that a space plays on liturgical and ceremonial occasions. Artworks with a large footprint, or heavy weight, cannot be positioned where they will obstruct any of the cathedral’s many other functions. “A cathedral is not a blank canvas, but a bejewelled canvas, where every inch has meaning,” she says.
Finnbarr WebsterUntitled: Megaphone by Phyllida Barlow
Two oil paintings in “Joyful Noise” are provided by Caroline Walker and Denzil Forrester. Walker, a Scottish artist, is best known for work presenting the everyday lives of women and highlighting the scenes of their domestic and emotional labour. The artist’s early work was highly staged: photoshoots featured models at hired locations. But, since 2017, she has taken a more documentary approach to image-making. This is evident in Taking Turns (2026), an oil-on-linen work inspired by play in a forest school. Here, the tree trunks and leaf canopy echo the columns and arches of the cathedral. Children are depicted taking turns on a pipe slide, underlining the feeling of joy derived from being together.
In Forrester’s Congregation (2025), washes of colour and angular planes emphasise the parallels between musical and religious gatherings. The piece was developed from drawings of a live DJ performance in Cornwall.
Finnbarr WebsterUTOOTO (2025) by Yuri Suzuki
Classified Digits (2016), a single-channel video by Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader, is the sole video installation. Sun Kim was born profoundly deaf, and her first language was American Sign Language (ASL). This is the medium used in Classified Digits to communicate socially awkward situations. While Mader’s arms, appearing from behind Sun Kim’s torso, communicate one message, the artist’s expressive face creates dissonance between what is expressed and what is intended. The Berlin-based artist’s practice considers how sound operates in society, deploying ASL, her body, and humour.
For the cathedral’s curator, the response to “Joyful Noise” has been very positive. “We have received glowing reports,” Ms Barnes says. “I think visitors — and those viewing the works outside — are connecting with the diversity of works available in the exhibition, as well as interactive elements.”
Reflecting on what the audience will take away from such a diversity of contemporary artists and art forms, she continues: “I hope people come away smiling. So much of the exhibition is about bringing people together, whether that’s strangers smiling at each other as they pass the west-front door because they hear this ghostly musical sound coming from the cathedral, or people interacting [through voices] on the UTOOTO piece. I hope that people come away feeling more connected, whether that’s spiritually or in a communion of people coming together.”
“Joyful Noise” is at Salisbury Cathedral until 25 October. salisburycathedral.org.uk