‘The School Connect Project was designed to foster links through art practice between schoolchildren in Manchester and their counterparts in Palestine. The two schools who took part were Benchill Primary in Wythenshawe and The Evangelical Lutheran School of Hope in Ramallah.

Supported by the Arts Council England, the project began in Benchill moving on to Ramallah where Peter spent three weeks at the Lutheran School. Each school group was asked to produce drawings that considered their immediate environment, including likes/dislikes, hopes, desires and aspirations, the resultant imagery being transferred onto ceramic tiles. Eventually all the tiles were incorporated into a freestanding artwork that was displayed in the grounds of the Imperial War Museum North.

For the Palestinian children, this was an opportunity to participate in an experience that looked beyond their immediate situation. Many Palestinian children have been traumatised by events and their education fragmented due to continued occupation, sporadic incursions and curfews. The project encouraged Benchill pupils to explore a broad range of topics set outside their own culture, specifically the daily routines of others who live under occupation.

Other support was given by Manchester Art Gallery and The Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Ramallah.’
(Extracts from press releases).

The ‘SHRINE AT NEMI’ Commission

To create an outdoor installation at Rufford Abbey Country Park, Nottinghamshire, on the theme of Sir John Savile’s Victorian excavations at the Roman Shrine of Diana Nemorensis in Nemi. Lord Savile excavated the Temple of Diana at Nemi for eight months in 1885. He was an important British Diplomat who found time towards the end of a long career to indulge in his passions for art and archaeology. Part of the finds from this temple site now rest in the Castle Museum at Nottingham, some have been displayed at Rufford Abbey itself.

The present small town of Nemi lies 16 miles south east of Rome, in the 4th Century BC a temple to Diana was built at this location.

The 1st Lord Savile died at Rufford on the 30th November 1896. Sometime later, more of the Nemi collection was passed onto the Nottingham museum service, in whose care it still is today. (More information can be found at www.speculum-dianae.nottingham.ac.uk).

The installation comprises of a replica temple that incorporates six viewing portals, when peered into the viewer can see a ceramic votive. The votive is set inside a mirror box that creates a repeat image disappearing into infinity. This concept reflects our desire to explore the past, each mirror frame encapsulates the passing of time over centuries.

The piece is completed by a column crowned by the head of Diana, the Goddess observes and contemplates those who peer inside her Temple.

The work is also intended to celebrate the craft and use of natural materials such as fine grain sandstone, fired clay and coloured glazes, resonating with previous traditions and the Abbey Grounds.

Animal Instincts

‘In one of his most ambitious works to date Peter Lewis has built a modern Sphinx, that great mythical beast of the oriental world. The cat like body in white clay with what appears to be smoke-fired markings is topped by a helmeted soldier’s head. Based on photographs of fighters of the US 7th Marine Regiment who had blackened their faces and even fixed horns to their helmets, the form has a strangely sinister quality- like a twenty first century idol. But it becomes all the more eerie when it is seen in a darkened room, lit from below with glowing red light....... (Extract from The Camouflage of Truth, by Moira Vincentelli, ISBN 1-903409-06-3).’

(The US 7th Marine Regiment was one of the first to enter Iraq during the invasion of 2003).