Shoreditch art exhibition puts new spin on interfaith dialogue

Brand new intercultural connections were made this week at 3FF’s exhibition ‘Faith in the City’, held during National Interfaith Week.

Setting the tone for the rest of the two-week exhibition, last night’s vibrant Festival Night at RED Gallery in the heart of Shoreditch brought over 200 young professionals from London’s diverse communities together for an evening of art, music, food and live painting.

Central to the exhibition are three exclusive multi-faith art collaborations, created by Muslim, Christian and Jewish artists who are participating in 3FF’s Urban Dialogues programme. The three pieces use a number of different mediums – including calligraphy and neon lights – to address questions of communal relations and social change. Thirty-five individual artists also show their work side by side.

3FF’s Urban Dialogues programme works with a number of galleries and faith-based organisations to create a new model for interfaith engagement, with artists and their art establishing relationships between communities.

Francesca Ulivari, one of the collaborating artists, said:

“The whole project turned out to be an amazing learning experience about each other’s cultures and faiths. It allowed us to create a body of work that, we hope, communicates that unity between separate cultures is possible.”

Artist Orly Orbach, who worked on two collaborations, added:

“The process of making work is at least as important as the final product, and if it involves a genuine collaboration, it comes across in the final work. This for me is parallel to putting together one’s beliefs and actions, and finding positive ways of interacting and relating to all people in life, acknowledging and enjoying each other’s differences.”

Images of artwork and events available on request