Art in the context of Christian faith

by Wendy Ngcobo and Cindy Mthembu

“Nobody who comes to Grahamstown has to ask for directions to the Cathedral”.

This was the highlighting at this year’s spirit Fest .The Cathedral is one of the ancient buildings in Grahamstown. Spirit Fest is an item presented at the Grahamstown National Festival of the Arts. This is art in the context of Christian faith and items such as gospel music, lectures, worship and dance are offered.

 One of the highlights this year was a book Grahamstown Cathedral: A Guide and Short History by Charles Gould that was launched. Jeanette Eve introduced the new guide which is a continuation of the older guide. “I dedicated myself to the rewriting of this guide” said Eve explaining the hard work she did putting together the second guide. She thanked everyone including Dean Andrew Hunter who played a fundamental role in bringing the book to life.

She has been sceptical at first as she already had many projects that she was doing but was happy and excited about the finished product. Local is Lekker “, she said .She emphasised  that she was happy to say that this book was written ,updated and now released in Grahamstown . Eve gave a vote of thanks to the Cory library for preserving a lot of the archives about the Cathedral.

She described this as a part of Spirit Fest and a beautiful work of art. This book is being updated the first having been updated in 1927 ,”It will help regular worshippers as well as visitors” said Eve. It was done as the Cathedral has seen so much, even those who think they know the Cathedral will find some things that are new in this guide.

               

With many people coming to Fest, Christians who want to worship and ask God for guidance and people from other religion that are interested in finding out or just want to listen to gospel music can come to this historical and sacred place.