A Mishearing: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

An installation tracing the journey of the boulder near Coventry Cathedral's entrance, from its Cretaceous origins to its 1960 flight from Beirut to Manchester.

This installation follows the story of the limestone boulder near the entrance of Coventry Cathedral, which contains crystals and marine fossils at least 100 million years old. It explores the mishearing that led architect Basil Spence's friend Frankland Dark to suggest Bethlehem as the source for the cathedral's font stone, and the rock's 1960 journey in an iron cage with a boarding pass from Beirut to Manchester, described by participants as 'a saga of goodwill'. The work reflects on deep time and geo-political tensions and arose from Professor Nirmal Puwar's British Academy Innovation Fellowship on the civic life of Coventry Cathedral, connecting with Jasleen Kaur's British Art Show 10 installation nearby.