Faith Museum

The Faith Museum is part of Auckland Castle, once home to the Prince Bishops of Durham; a place where the material and spiritual have combined since pre-Roman times.
Leading visitors on a journey through history, the Museum tells the story of faith in Britain across six millennia kindling curiosity, raising universal questions about our place in the world and relate to one another.
Four dynamic galleries explore key moments, people and ideas that have impacted Britain, through over 250 objects from 50 lenders. Rarely seen objects, national treasures, personal mementoes and contemporary art commissions provoke enquiry and reflection. These objects have been chosen to show the nature and impact of something seemingly invisible and intangible: if faith is something we cannot perceive physically, can evidence of faith be found?

The challenge to the design of the museum were the same as those related to its curation – how to make visible an invisible, divisive and often unacknowledged subject in an exciting and engaging way. Our strategy involved book-ending the visitor experience with three questions: Am I alone? How do I live? And Where do I belong? These set up an inclusive, accessible introduction to the idea of faith and invite visitors to reflect on their own spirituality. In between those questions the stories of faith are set out in chrono-thematic order.

The scale of narrative within the Faith Museum sets it apart from any other recent cultural institution in the UK. This scale is echoed in the architecture of the buildings, as we move through the historic Scotland Wing of Auckland Castle with vaulted ceilings and through a series of arched gateways that herald the enormous events that influenced laws and lives.

A linear timeline, studded with artefacts, threads its way through each section, incorporating layered cut-out illustrations that bring the narrative to life. Sightlines have been designed to pull visitors towards momentous features, such as an Anglo-Saxon stone cross embedded into a circular AV that moves and changes to reveal layers of hidden interpretation.

As we progress towards faith in Modern Britain, the displays comprise contemporary works of art. Each piece has been created by artists from a variety of faith traditions and backgrounds, and once again ask the visitor to reflect on the three central questions - Am I Alone?; How do I Live?; and Where do I Belong? Arguably, the most foundational questions in existence.