Flock of 2,000 doves of peace created for North Devon church

Volunteers have been busy creating a flock of 2,000 paper doves of peace at Barnstaple’s Parish Church to promote kindness and togetherness in the community.

Each origami paper dove at the Church of St Peter and St Mary Magdalene off the High Street has been created by local residents as part of a Barnstaple in Bloom winter art project.

The project has been brought together by artist Caroline Preston and architect Enea Emiliani, with the In Bloom team working with a variety of location organisations.

Above: Artist Caroline Preston with some of the origami doves to be installed at Barnstaple’s Parish Church.

Visitors are warmly invited to go along and see the exhibition when it officially opens on Tuesday (January 27). It will then be available to view every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday until the end of February between 10am to 4pm. Plus on Sundays from 10.30am to 12noon.

Each dove is an expression of hope for peace and organisers say the project shows how small actions by individuals can together ‘send a strong message of unity, kindness, humanity and peace’.

Above and below: Volunteers have been busy putting up the origami doves of peace at the church.

They say the art project gives a voice to an otherwise silent majority to respond to reports or threats of armed conflict, extremist hostility, rage baiting, or aggression towards perceived ‘outsiders’ and an opportunity for residents to say “This is not who we are.”

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The Reverend Canon Dr Benjamin Williams, Vicar of Barnstaple, said: “I’m delighted the church can host this exhibition. One of the reasons that Jesus has always been a compelling figure is that he taught the golden rule to ‘do to others as you would have them do to you’ and what’s more, he practiced what he preached.

“The 2,000 expressions of hope for peace that fill the church communicate the same commitment to loving kindness, human empathy and concern for the wellbeing of others on the part of our local community.

“The exhibition will be dedicated on Sunday, February 1 at 10.30am with the prayer of St Francis of Assisi – everyone is invited to come on the day or to use the prayer in the meantime.”

Above: Architect Enea Emiliani, co-organiser, putting up some of the doves in the church.

The exhibition was sponsored by Barnstaple district and county councillor Syed Jusef.

Barnstaple In Bloom worked with a range of groups and individuals, including: Barnstaple Soroptimists, Barnstaple Inner Wheel, Barnstaple Rotary, BloomAbility, Barnstaple WI, CrOW (Creative Older Women), Children’s Summer Club, Memory Café, North Devon Craftivists, Jayne Chapple, Kate Fairbrother, Susan Emery and St Peter and St Mary Magdalene Parish Church.

For anyone who wishes to use the prayer of St Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.