Early visitors to a dramatic, immersive work by Mat Collishaw have talked of it prompting emotional and cathartic responses – which is music to the ears of the artist. “That would be the ultimate reward,” he said. “If someone can take some sort of solace from the work then that really is amazing.”
Collishaw’s work features a blue iris burning before you, accompanied by a choral soundtrack. The iris is engulfed by flames but never consumed by them, which visitors may, the artist hopes, imagine is the moment before the death of Christ or a martyr.
It is part of a unique museum opening in October in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, exploring 6,000 years of faith in Britain. More than 250 objects are on display including the Binchester ring, which was discovered locally and is one of the earliest examples of Christian symbolism ever found in Britain.
Upstairs there are works exploring themes of faith by contemporary artists including the Singh twins, the late Khadija Saye, who died in the Grenfell Tower fire; and Collishaw, one of the original YBAs.
His presence in a museum of faith is particularly interesting because he was brought up as a Dawn Christadelphian – a sect that believes the Bible is the only truth there is.
It was “hardcore”, he said at a preview of the museum on Thursday. No Christmas. Definitely no television, which he would secretly watch in other people’s houses while on his paper round. To many it may sound terrible, but it was a happy childhood, he said.
“In retrospect I was much happier than I would have been if I was watching Tiswas. I think I got more from reading about Nebuchadnezzar than I would have got from Chris Tarrant.”
His upbringing has affected his art subconsciously, he said. “A lot of the work I do draws on historical ideas and I’m pretty sure that’s because I was brought up with this heavy sense of history.”
The museum is another piece in a crazy jigsaw known as the Auckland Project, a cultural regeneration project in a “left-behind” post-industrial northern town driven by the money and passion of Jonathan Ruffer, a wealthy asset manager.
In addition, the town has a “Prado of the north” Spanish art gallery, a mining art gallery and a castle with many wonders including a spectacular series of paintings by Francisco de Zurbarán, of Jacob and his 12 sons.
The Faith Museum has been 10 years in the planning and, with “many challenges along the way”, say its backers, has required faith to be kept.
About two-thirds of the objects are loans, including objects from the British Museum and the V&A. There are treasures such as the Bodleian bowl, a short-term loan from the Ashmolean in Oxford. The enigmatic 13th-century copper alloy bowl is a rare survivor from medieval England’s Jewish population, which was expelled by Edward I in 1290.
More modern objects include a Salvation Army bonnet from the early 1900s, which is more like a helmet and needed to be, given the hostility – and bricks – that “soldiers” were regularly met with when they preached and played their loud brass instruments.
Visitors do not need faith to enjoy the museum, with one display revealing that in 2001 only 15% of people in England and Wales said they had no faith, and two decades later it was 37%.
But what did they mean by faith? “Everyone operates in the field of faith, just as everybody has a body and everybody has a mind,” Ruffer said. “I think it’s impossible to get through life without addressing questions of faith.”
He hopes the museum might help the “faith hesitant” on their journey and also have a surprising effect on people “who have what I call spiritual hairy chests, who think of themselves as being very mature, all their theology is right, they do all the things that mark them out as aristocrats of faith. Those people I want to unsettle.”
• The Faith Museum opens on 7 October.
