Art installation turns into Navalny memorial

AN art installation has been installed at Dorchester Abbey to honour activist Alexei Navalny.

The installation, which was conceived and created by Adrian Brooks, who lives in the village, invites visitors into a 3m by 2m imitation cell like the one the anti-
corruption campaigner lived in following his sentencing in January 2021.

Now it has become a memorial following his death in prison on Friday.

Navalny, an outspoken critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin, had been sentenced to solitary confinement and hard labour for 28 years on charges deemed by human rights activists to be trumped up.

His death has led to widespread condemnation of Mr Putin, with many accusing him personally.

The outside of the cell features portraits of other prisoners of conscience who have been incarcerated and sometimes executed.

On one wall is inscribed a quote from Navalny in Russian, which translated means: “I am not going to call for violence or aggression —– of course not.”

Beneath it a message in English reads: “At the end of the day, love and compassion will win.”

Inside the cell is a timer for three minutes — a five millionth of Navalny’s sentence. Visitors can close the door and set the timer, at which point music is played, to gain a sense of what it was like for him.

Steph Forman, the abbey’s events co-ordinator, said: “Adrian approached the abbey and asked if he could do it. We worked together and found a space.

“The piece was originally centred around Navalny’s incarceration as a prisoner of conscience, which sits well in a church.

“Adrian was inspired by what it would feel like to sit in a cell for that long and how a person would cope with that. By the time it was in the abbey, Navalny had been sent to the Arctic and within days of it being here, he was dead so what started off as an art installation has become more like a shrine.”

She said visitors were now using the installation as a way of mourning Navalny.

She said: “People are coming in with flowers and cards and using it as an opportunity to pray and think. It is a really thought-provoking piece.

“We get many visitors to the abbey who didn’t realise it was there and it is a powerful piece.

“There’s a steady stream of quiet visitors. We have had other art installations but never anything as timely as this. It’s moving.”

Rev Jane Willis, team rector at Dorchester Abbey, said: “To spend three minutes in that cell with the timer going is an invitation to all of us to contemplate how we spend the time that has been gifted to us.

“We are really excited to host pieces of art which encourage people to engage more deeply with our faith.

“We thought Lent would be a good time to have this here, especially as we engage with the images of people who have really suffered for their faith.”