Image: Detail, Les Colombes, 2017 by Micheal Pendry. 2500 white paper doves flying in nave of Salisbury Cathedral. All courtesy of the artist.
Michael Pendry: Les Colombes
LARGE SCALE CATHEDRAL EXHIBITION
In April 2017 Salisbury was devastated by the repercussions of the Novichock incident in the city. Two months later Salisbury Cathedral hosted, Les Colombes exhibition which carried a message of peace and reconciliation.
Artist Michael Pendry and Curator Jacquiline Creswell in conversation.
Les Colombes by multimedia artist Michael Pendry featured a flock of over 2,500 white origami doves that flew the length of the Cathedral Nave. The white Dove has inspired mankind with its innocence and purity, it is a physical and emotional message of peace and within the context of the cathedral a symbol of the Holy Spirit.
Originally this installation was commissioned to mark the centenary of the end of World War One, the exhibition was a timely reminder that the appeal for peace and reconciliation remains as powerful today as it was in 1918.
Les Colombes, 2017 by Michael Pendry.
The installation stretched beyond the walls of Cathedral and embraced a stunned city. The congregation and wider community were invited to come together to fold their own white paper dove and write prayers or messages of peace inside them, before joining the wider flock.
White paper Doves appear in all shop windows throughout the city of Salisbury
Student folding paper dove to contribute to the flock
White paper Doves appear in all shop windows throughout the city of Salisbury
White paper Doves appear in all shop windows throughout the city of Salisbury
The Impact
The impact of this exhibition on the city of Salisbury was extraordinary, white paper doves were exhibited in every shop window in Salisbury, schools, businesses and even Erlestoke prisoners participated. A range of statistics below.
Key Messaging achieved in all media:
· ‘Appointment to see’ art work
· City in recovery
· Community engagement
· Resilient City
Print and magazine:
Over 65 articles and captioned pictures (national, local, regional and international) and blogs from May to end of June with additional mentions in July/August relating to the doves that appear in the Salisbury BID umbrella installation.
Online reach: over 8m
Conservative estimate of reach including BBC TV online, national news online and local papers, blogs, international news/magazines online. This includes 2 high ranking sites – The Atlantic and Mail Online.
Broadcast Reach: 2m conservation estimate
Spire FM, BBC Wilts, Points West and South Today. Plus world news which reaches millions globally
Print and Magazine:
3m using reach/readership and circulation
News print and magazine including half page and quarter page pictures with paragraph captions front pages and stand-alone articles
Marketing impact
2,500 doves were displayed in the Cathedral and 25,000 sheets of origami paper, 15,000 instruction sheets and 10,000 card dove templates were distributed in and around Salisbury for dove-making workshops and displays.
10,000 interpretation leaflets were printed for distribution to visitors to the Cathedral – none were left over at the end of the installation.
Community Participation
6 community venues and businesses volunteered to distribute the paper, instructions and cut outs and over 130 Salisbury businesses created their own dove displays on their premises – around 1/3 of these had displays intact over a month after Les Colombes was dismantled.
Two large scale events with nearly 300 attendees each concluded with dove-making workshops and 130 people came to the exhibition private view.
Around 20 schools, care homes and community groups also hosted dove-making workshops or created their own displays. Erlestoke prisoners created some of the doves that were included in the cathedral display which will go on to future exhibition venues.
Social Media
Combined Salisbury Cathedral Facebook posts about the project reached 105,000 people in total generating over 12,000 likes / reactions and over 6,000 link clicks. Our Twitter posts relating to this project generated nearly 150,000 impressions in total.
1,300 unique authors used the hashtag #salisburycityofdoves – 82% on Twitter and 15% on Instagram.
Over 2,000 posts on Instagram were tagged #lescolombes or #salisburycityofdoves
Website Traffic
The campaign achieved 12,542 page views across 5 pages (which include 2 workshop events) of which 10,484 were unique. For 5,506 of these visits (44%) these pages were the first pages visited on the site and 53% of visits left the site from these pages indicating that around half of these visitors had only visited the site for information about this project.
Detail, Les Colombes, 2017 by Micheal Pendry. 2500 white paper doves flying in nave of Salisbury Cathedral. All courtesy of the artist.
Photography by Ash Mills