The ‘Little Bits of God Mosaic’ was exhibited in the Chapel at Leeds Trinity University recently. It was curated by Pete Godling for the Bishop’s Conference. The description of the piece is here and includes a video from the artist himself: The God Who Speaks.

The Leeds Year of Culture 2023 campaign is entitled: “Culture shines. The city thrives.” It was fitting therefore for us to host the ‘Little Bits of God’ Mosaic in the university this year as it helped to bring to life the beauty of art, and the kinds of artistic expressions that bring us close to the divine essence and raise our imaginations so that we are brought back to the centrality of the messages contained within the Sacred Scriptures. Oftentimes, we can become accustomed to reading the texts of Scripture over and over again, and this can lead to a kind of familiarity with the text that brings about complacency or an attitude of ‘I know what that means.’ We often need to be offered a new and more energetic presentation of the text so that we are brought once again to a renewed sense of what the texts are about as well as a more invigorated understanding of their significance. The ‘Little Bits of God’ Mosaic really did that in our Chapel recently. Many came to visit it and picked out special features that were significant to them. Many were very touched by the inclusion of Alan Kurdi, the two-year-old who was washed up on the beach in Turkey during a treacherous journey across the Mediterranean Sea in September 2015 to escape war-torn Syria. Art helps us to remember key events -lest we forget.

The mosaic was commissioned as a joint venture of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and the Bible Society, as part of the national God Who Speaks campaign, and it depicts various scenes from the Old and New Testament, with the intention of drawing the observer deeper into the mystery of God’s Word.