PassionArt explores the way art and faith impact our everyday lives. Our mission is to recover beauty, stillness and compassion at the heart of our communities through colletive acts of creativity.
Curating exhibitions and projects that partner with both secular and sacred spaces we aim to build bridges between faith and community to promote wellbeing, cohesiveness and cultural and social transformation.
We support and encourage Christian artists to work within their cultural spheres through our monthly Creatives gatherings. We aim to nurture individuals and families, churches and communities to re-engage with creativity through the celebration of Christian festivals using different forms of collective creative activity, creative family living and an appreciation of beauty across all generations and between cultures, knowing that beauty crosses all boundaries of language by speaking directly to the soul.
We explore issues around art and faith through exhibitions, projects, teaching, resourcing and creative gatherings.
Based in Manchester we have built links and partnerships with churches and cultural institutions to encourage the creative exploration of Christian festivals and to integrate faith, beauty and creative practice within the community. We aim to push creative boundaries using contemporary art and installation to visually critique our time and culture and to consider ways to increase beauty and hope in our place.
We hold monthly Creative Gatherings to nurture and support both the spiritual and creative life of visual artists, and have a small arts and faith library that people can borrow from.
We offer seminars and workshops on using the arts in both church and community to encourage creativity within the home as part of exploring and sharing faith together particularly around the Christian festivals of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and Harvest.
Background:
We held our first PassionArt Trail in Lent 2014 reflecting on themes relating to the Easter Passion story. Hosted in six venues across the city centre we welcomed around seven thousand visitors during the eight weeks we were open to engage with the Easter narrative. In 2016 we hosted another Lent Art Trail called Be Still again working with six venues across the city centre including the city art gallery, the John Rylands Library and Manchester Cathedral that estimated attendance of around fifteen thousand over the course of the exhibitions.
We have partnered with St Ann’s Church Manchester in the heart of the city centre to create a series of pop-up exhibitions creating a conversation between spirituality, the arts and community using the mindful reflection of art to explore wholehearted living. These exhibitions will allow the Christian calendar to form a structure for the events although the art works will not necessarily be religious in nature, but aim to invite us to reflect on values that are common to all faith groups, helping us to live compassionately, peacefully and creatively in our diverse and exciting city. We are also working in collaboration with Manchester Cathedral and it’s arts progamme. During 2018 we have partnered with The Centre for Theology and Justice to run a new arts initiative looking at the role the arts play in issues of social justice and exploring the role of theological reflection within the arts.
PassionArt is a charity served by a small group of volunteers and led by artist and curator Lesley Sutton.
Lesley has worked with churches and community groups for more than 30 years and in the cultural sector for around 15 years, qualified to MA level in the visual arts, she has led a number of community arts projects, curated gallery exhibitions and worked as an arts co-ordinator in church.
Lindsay Grant is a photographer who is also wonderful at administration.
Micah Purnell is a graphic designer and word artist who makes all our projects and publications look slick and meaningful.
Rachel Ho is ceramic artist whose sensitive work explores the vulnerability and brokenness of the human condition.
Mike Thorpe is a graphic designer, artist and curator, his studio Design Chapel is based in Macclesfield where he has been involved in several local art events, including the Barnaby Festival. He has strong links with the South West, particularly Cornwall, and is a member of the Newlyn Society of Artists.
If you would like to contact us for more information about any of our work, or to invite us to work alongside you to develop an arts and faith project or ‘Creatives’ group in your area then please email.
Contact lesley at lesley@passionart.uk
Charity No: 1160894