Clipart and Modern Cultural Capital

In tutorial session on Wednesday, we were discussing and lamenting 2 things, which are fairly connected:

1. That churches used to be places of cultural capital – the Sistine Chapel, stained glass works of art, sculpture, architecture, printing, illustration, the Gutenberg Bible…
2. The jarring juxtaposition of beautiful church buildings alongside photocopies of 1990’s clipart.

Some reasons suggested by various students included the idea that churches are dying these days. The amount of money available to churches in the time of beautiful stained glass windows far exceeds what churches have at their disposal today, and indeed, the church is no longer the centre of most of what the community does. There was previously no other place for art or artisanship that in the church, because that was where everyone was.

In my own church, a historical federation era sandstone building, there is money set aside for maintaining the beauty of the building. Preserving that part of our heritage. And yet there is hardly any consideration for creating new cultural heritage that complements our history and is relevant to our culture.

Someone mentioned that the thing that stands out to them when going to funerals in old churches (as a rare occasion they did attend a church) is the ‘crappy photocopied handouts’, alongside such beautiful old buildings.

Data projectors and other technology has found pride of place in church sanctuaries, often covering up the previous central focus of the building, like a stained glass mural or sculpture/symbol of some kind.