Overview

• Conceived by poet Alex Vellis and curator Jacquiline Creswell after workshops with marginalised groups, the installation displays questions such as “Are you there?” and “Does everything have a soul?”.
• Officials emphasize the graphics are removable transfers placed on pillars, walls and staircases rather than spray-painted directly onto the stone.
• The show opens on October 17 and runs until January 18, with the transfers scheduled for removal before Dame Sarah Mullally’s enthronement as Archbishop of Canterbury.
• Dean David Monteith defended the work as intentionally raw and disruptive to build bridges across cultures and generations.
• Responses are sharply divided, with visitors calling it “sacrilegious” or likening it to an “underground car park,” and figures including JD Vance and Elon Musk condemning it as “really ugly” and “shameful.”