Just before the Whitsun half term break around 100 pupils from Gresham’s Prep and Senior Schools came together to create a new art installation in Chapel. The installation features 1000 metres of multihued ribbons cascading from the rafters which fill the space with a riot of colour: like streams of light connecting heaven and earth. Inspired by Old Greshamian W H Auden who died fifty years ago this year, pupils wrote words from his poem Whitsunday in Kirchstetten on each piece of ribbon to help us mark this significant anniversary as a school community. Whitsun is the festival in which the Christian church commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit, and Auden is buried in Kirchstetten in Austria.

The different coloured ribbons contained in the piece are intended to match both the summer sunsets which come streaming through the West Window in Chapel and the stained-glass depiction of the Holy Spirit contained in the Chapel’s East Window.

School Chaplain Rev Jack Branford said, “The pupils have done a wonderful job creating this stunning work. It seems to lift people’s spirits and make them smile as they walk into Chapel.”