And the winners are…

Nov 2022 | London

Our pop-up exhibition X Marks the Spot at London’s Truman Brewery has closed, and with it the AT The Bus charity raffle and the Meet Your Hero competition. Scroll down for the winners!

1. Meet Your Hero Competition
I asked people to nominate their ‘hero’ – someone they would love to hang out with in a Glass Cathedral. Would they like to be gazing at the stars with The Little Prince? Swimming in the waves with a grandparent or busking with Taylor Swift in front of the Sacre Couer? I received entries with highly evocative scenes of magic and mayhem, but ultimately I chose two winners for reasons I hadn’t anticipated.

Winner 1 Poppy Clementine
Twenty-year old P has struggled with mental health since her big sister passed away eight years ago. She has rebuilt her life with amazing support from friends and nurses and that was part of what she wanted represented: “I would be so lucky to have a very special box created which I can look at every day to remind myself that I am not alone.”

But I was doubly struck by her own strength and determination to heal, I saw her as her own hero. I wanted to make P this reminder that though she, and we all, are tiny and vulnerable in many ways, she is a miraculous creature.

Her winning Glass Cathedral contains reminders of all the elements that will help her move forward on her healing path – her love for her sister embodied in the white bird, her loveable dog, the ‘u r loved’ balloon representing all the love she has in her life. I included the sunflower to represent nature, beauty and growing along your own path. Sometimes sunflowers are open and facing the sun, sometimes closed and reconnecting with their energy source.

Winner 2 Jane-Amanda Wise
This Glass Cathedral is of Jane-Amanda and her mum sitting, chatting. They didn’t get to share this in real life, because her mum died by suicide when she was only three.

I was moved by Jane Amanda’s experience, and also by something to do with the transformative power of art. When she thought of the world inside a Glass Cathedral, away from the noise and complications of this world, Jane-Amanda was led to this private and hidden place where her deepest wish could be expressed, something I don’t think is as easy in real life.

2. AT The Bus Raffle: The world is a scary place, but I have armbands
67 people bought 114 tickets. We raised over £500 for AT the Bus, a charity that offers a school-based programme of art as therapy to support the education, health and wellbeing of children and young people in Oxfordshire and London.

The winner of this Glass Cathedral was Nelly Munthe from London.