MAPPING FAITH & PLACE: 1st SEMINAR

Faithful reader, won't you welcome please, guest blogger Rosemarie Fitton:

I attended the first seminar of a project, Mapping Faith and Place, run by Leicester University, "investigating the significance of South Asian religious and cultural heritage in Leicester's urban landscape." This took place at New Walk Museum and Art Gallery. There are two further seminars to run next year followed by a public conference. I was wearing a number of hats, firstly as the creative director of Heterarchy, my interior design practice, based here in Leicester, secondly as an academic from DeMontfort university and thirdly, after George had asked me to write a blog about the seminar, as a member of the Leicester Council of Faiths. 

The seminar was organised by Dr Deirdre O'Sullivan and Dr Ruth Young, both from the School of Archaeology & Ancient History at Leicester University. 

There were a series of talks which were preceded by an introduction to the project by Dr Chris King, who had originally conceived and obtained funding for the research; Dr King, formerly of Leicester University, is now based at Nottingham University.

Dr King outlined the purpose of the project which is for academics and non-academics to work together to share knowledge and insights in order to gain an understanding of Leicester's cultural and religious landscape. In this series of seminars we will be looking at ways to take the project forward and how to best connect with people from the different communities. 

Dr Deirdre O'Sullivan and Dr Ruth Young talked about the work that had already taken place, which has resulted in The Faith Trail, most of the work for which was carried out by students at Leicester university. There is a website and booklet which accompanies this part of the project.

We then had a talk by Linda Monkton of English Heritage, who is head of research policy for places of worship. She spoke about the National Heritage list for England which includes an on-line database of all nationally designated heritage assets and the National Heritage Protection Plan, which is a framework for the key priorities for research over protection issues. She was very interested in finding out ways that English Heritage could foster good relationships with local contacts in the different faith communities. 

I then gave a talk on the work my company had carried out on the interiors for the new Swaminarayan Hindu temple on Gypsy Lane, which opened on the 8th-9th October. Describing how we had become involved in the project and how we set about the design process, to create interiors which reflected the rich cultural heritage of the Swaminarayan faith yet in a more contemporary style.

Rupert Allen, Assistant Church Buildings Development Officer for the Diocese of Coventry and Leicester spoke about the re-use of historically significant buildings and ways in which these could be sympathetically re-ordered to accommodate the new occupants.
In the afternoon we had lively discussions which initially looked at the issue of the Leicester orthodox synagogue which has recently been put up for sale, and the significance of religious buildings and their heritage as "sustainable sacred space".

This was followed by looking at ways to move the project forward and what the major issues were for the different faith communities in terms of buildings and the built environment and other groups who had an interest such as English heritage and academics.

Thanks Rosemarie, your contribution is much appreciated. I look forward to you having future stints as guest blogger.