I’m back in Bradford now, having travelled down to Worcester in order to collect my exhibition from the Cathedral. I’m very pleased with the response I’ve had to my work, which is many respects has been as warm as for any of my previous shows. It has been interesting to get home and have the opportunity to read the entries in the comments book which I left for visitors. Over the next few days I might well look at several of these in detail, but one aspect of the response I have found particularly interesting.
The theme of the exhibition was my development of the “Green Man” image, which is a common feature of mediaeval church architecture.* There has been quite a controversy in the history of architecture as to whether these images might be survivals of pre-christian folk religion, smuggled into Christian settings. This theory is now generally discredited by scholars. Nevertheless, this idea does feature quite regularly in responses to this aspect of my work. Both in Lincoln and now in Worcester remarks in the comment book have criticised me for smuggling “pagan” ideas into a Christian setting. I was amused and surprised, however, by two entries in the book on this occasion. One claimed to be from a “regular witch”. I do wonder what brought her into a church. The other accused me of “cultural appropriation”, and stealing material from what should be treated as a bona fide religion in its own right (ie. “Paganism”.)
The concept of “cultural appropriation” is commonly used these days, criticising the “borrowing” of aspects of culture by the former imperial powers from their former colonial possessions. Actually, I think that this concept is a nonsense. All culture involves “appropriation”. Cultures are never pure entities from which it might be possible to steal bits and pieces. In fact, I wonder whether it is right to use the term “cultures” in the plural. There is only a process of culture, which flows, and always has flowed, in complex ways between different contexts, gathering and recombining elements of material culture, behaviour and belief. In fact, what is presented to us as “Paganism”, in our contemporary setting, is far from being a coherent and historically enduring cultural configuration. It is a synthesis of images and practices gathered from a variety of ages and settings in Europe (and probably beyond.) But there again …. so is Christianity. As a former university social scientist I think that the term “cultural appropriation” lacks both coherence and utility.
*The “Green Man”, in case you are not familiar with this idea, is technically known as a “folate head”. A human head (usually male) is depicted with foliage emerging from mouth, eyes or ears. These are very common in old churches, in fact in a visit to the Norman parish church in Kirkby Lonsdale last week we encountered one there. They are usually integrated into roof bosses, the capitals of columns, or sometimes the underside of misericords.