Helios shines at Liverpool Cathedral this Easter

A giant new art installation is illuminating the interior of Liverpool Cathedral this Easter.

Artist Luke Jerram’s Helios artwork is on display in the cathedral’s Well from today until May 9 - apart from April 17-19 when it will be taken down for Easter services.

And a special programme of events and activities – several of them already sold out – will take place below and around it while it is in the Grade I listed landmark place of worship.

Helios took around eight months to design, with the surface of the sun being faithfully recreated on 4,000 separate sections from imagery taken by astro-photographer Dr Stuart Green last spring.

The installation was then physically created on a giant printer the size of a caravan and the sections painstakingly stitched together to create the finished work.

It is 200 million times smaller than an actual sun, and a tennis ball-sized planet in a glass case shows its comparative size to the Earth – although to get the fully accurate sense of distance, the smaller globe would have to be moved 700 metres (765 yards) down Hope Street to the Metropolitan Cathedral.

Visitors will also be immersed in a specially commissioned surround sound composition by Duncan Speakman and Sarah Anderson, featuring fire sounds, NASA solar mission recordings, summer beaches, and uplifting ambient music, connecting audiences with the Sun’s role in life, health, and culture.

Above: A slideshow gallery of images of Helios at Liverpool Cathedral

Speaking at the official launch, Jerram recalled how he had first visited Liverpool Cathedral as a 16-year-old on a school trip from his home in Stroud in Gloucestershire.

“I couldn’t quite believe the size of it, it blew my head off,” he said. “We all piled in the lift and went to the roof.”

He also remembered how on the way down the lift stopped working and the teenagers feared they may be trapped in there forever!

The Bristol-based artist, who describes Liverpool as “a really creative, dynamic, risk-taking city”, also explained how it had taken 50 people and a ‘team effort’ to bring his latest artwork to the cathedral.

He added: “It’s a privilege to present the artwork in this space – it frames it so beautifully.”

A scale model of the Earth in comparison to Luke Jerram's Helios sun.

Helios is a co-commission from Liverpool Cathedral, the National Trust, University College London, the Old Royal Naval College and Cork Midsummer Festival.

Liverpool is the first cathedral it has been exhibited in, and the building is also the only cathedral to showcase all three of Jerram’s inflatable celestial spheres following Museum of the Moon in 2018 and Gaia in 2019.

Canon Philip Anderson described them as “a crescendo of celestial bodies in conversation with this gigantic space” and spoke of “the joyful power of light” at this most important time of year in the cathedral calendar.

Helios is at Liverpool Cathedral until May 9, apart from April 17-19, and is free to view. More details HERE