Bodies are Sacred: a collaborative artwork inspired by Michelangelo

Michelangelo: the last decades looks at work the artist made in his later life, from his 50s through to his late 80s. One of the striking aspects of the exhibition is that it shows how important friendship, community and collaboration were for Michelangelo during those years. This insight was the starting point for the creation of a five-month community project (October 2023 to February 2024), which brought together a collective of intergenerational, LGBTQIA+-identifying artists to work collaboratively to create a new artwork which will be on display at the Museum at various points throughout the exhibition run. ​​The project was part of a much wider community engagement programme that the Museum​ runs year-round, which involves working with a diverse range of LGBTQIA+ community partners to research and creatively respond to the collection at the Museum. 

For Michelangelo: the last decades, we recruited a collective of established and emerging LGBTQIA+-identifying artists whose practice was centred in illustration and drawing. The collective included Poppy Tingay, Simon Elliott, Kim Plowright, Paul Madley, Lorenzo Belenguer, Timothy Alves, Emma ​​Carleschi, Cyan and Hermine Pouzoulet.

The aim of the project was to bring together a group of artists from different generations, who identify across the spectrum of LGBTQIA+ identities, to collaborate and be creative together. We wanted to create a space where we could learn from one another, explore our experiences – both shared and different – through workshops, conversation and drawing. As well as reflecting on Michelangelo's collaborative nature in his later years, we wanted to respond to a perceived need within the LGBTQIA+ community for more intergenerational work that could help tie different parts of the community together.​​​​ The development of the workshops and artwork were grounded in reflections on Michelangelo's drawings and life: we took inspiration from his works and reflected on their resonance with our own lives, art and experiences of our bodies as queer people. This is a community which holds difference as a point of connection – and we wanted to collaborate to make a piece of art reflective of our lives together, which could retain each artist's individuality while working coherently as a whole.

Before pencil touched paper, we needed to get inspired and situate ourselves in the work and life of Michelangelo in his later years. The artists met with the exhibition curators, Sarah Vowles and Grant Lewis, and spent time considering the artworks featured in the exhibition. We learnt how Michelangelo put much care into writing poetry for close friends as well as making drawings as gifts. The group was interested in this idea of creating to ​​give and the action of gift-giving and this sparked initial creative experimentation.

Other themes contemplated by Michelangelo in those years included the body and ageing. We began by writing down words which we associated with our bodies and experiences as queer people from different generations and identities. This collage of words was then turned into a form of collaborative poetry, which was read aloud while some group members moved their bodies in response to the words, while others observed and captured these movements in spontaneous drawings and​ 'mark-making' (improvised marks, lines and patterns) using charcoal and graphite pencils. 

The sketchers and movers switched places at times, so that both could take turns to occupy a different position. We discussed how it felt to move to the poetry; to be witnessed and drawn; and also to observe and draw. We noted how vulnerable we felt, but also how connecting and liberating it was to do this together. The drawings made by the group were then laid out and later made into a single collage.

This collage was then used as a springboard for the next stages of our collaboration. First, the group folded and sculpted the paper they had drawn on to create a single three-dimensional drawing which was placed in the centre of a table. Drawing independently, they then created images inspired by the collective sculpture with the knowledge that they would later be gifting them to one another. During this 'gift-giving' and re-gifting process the artists were called to pay attention to how it felt to give and receive: What concerns did they have? What felt joyful and connective and what felt complicated or difficult? The group playfully rebelled against the exercise and ended up putting their drawings together in the middle of the circle – essentially sharing and creating a communal set of drawings or 'gifts'. This act of gift-giving was then translated into a large spontaneous drawing where we used inks and pencils to visually describe the feelings that came up. After several stages of creating independently and bringing their work together to make a whole, this was the first time the group drew together on one piece of paper as a collective. 

Some of the group went to meet the exhibition curators, Sarah Vowles and Grant Lewis, and saw some of Michelangelo's drawings. It was an exciting moment to see the drawings that were inspiring the collective's work in real life. Michelangelo's Christ on the Cross, flanked by two lamenting angels, a skull at the base, which Michelangelo made for his friend, the poet Vittoria Colonna, inspired the composition of the group's final drawing. The group were struck by Christ's outstretched hand on the left and the clenched fist on the right, which seemed unusual compared with the symmetry of Christ's hands in many depictions of the crucifixion. For the group, this spoke to differing forms of resistance to persecution and oppression, something that the LGBTQIA+ community heavily relates to.

The work also spoke to Michelangelo's skill, commitment to perfection, and dedication to line and form. The group was struck by the beauty of some of the looser lines, which are a mark of his ageing hand. This sparked a discussion about the paradoxes of perfectionism in relation to creativity, spontaneity and the realisation of ideas. We thought about how perfectionism can lead to great work but also how, if the pressure to be perfect is too high, it can sometimes limit one's ability to play and make mistakes, which is also an important aspect of the creative process. We meditated on this as we developed our next piece of work. 

In order to start bringing parts of themselves into the development of the artwork, the group brought in images and objects which resonated with their individual experiences of queerness, drawing on themes of bodies, ageing, beauty, difference, joy and more. We shared our images with one another and collaged them together on the wall, to visualise our individual and collective experiences of queerness.

Experimenting with different compositions, the group finally decided upon a triangular form. This referenced the triangular shape of the Christ on the Cross, as well as the pink triangle that LGBTQIA+ people were forced to wear by the Nazis, which was later reclaimed by the LGBTQIA+ community during the HIV crisis in the 1980s as part of the Act Up movement. For the group, both the Christ on the Cross and the reclaiming of the pink triangle symbolise the human capacity for subverting oppression and resistance in the name of love and humanity. The composition is a powerful nod to Michelangelo's work and also honours an important symbol of activism and self-identification for the LGBTQIA+ community.

We then began mapping out the drawing in a cartoon. Cartoons – 1:1 scale preparatory drawings – were used by Michelangelo as a map for his final designs. The Epifania, which is the only complete surviving cartoon by Michelangelo, will go on show as part of the exhibition – and we decided to create our own in preparation for our final piece.

At last we began work on the final artwork. First we mapped out the interior, which is made up of the drawings depicting our lived experiences of queerness that we had collaged together in the previous workshop. The group chose to engage with and draw into one another's drawings, continuing to work in a way that felt collaborative and resonated with the initial theme of gift-giving. Once the central components of the work were made, we disassembled the paper panels and worked more detail into one another's drawings, adding shading and tone.​ The artwork was made up of many illustrations that, collaged together and through collective drawing, grew to represent a giant queer body made up of a community of different and contrasting parts of us all intertwined. It was intended to be a celebration of both our individuality and difference within the LGBTQIA+ community.

In our final sessions, we filled in the external borders of the drawing using a process known as 'mark-making'. We used different graphite sticks and pencils to fill the paper with shading and different kinds of marks. From a distance this looks like a dark silver block which surrounds the drawings, which are within a white triangle. As you look closer you can see that the block is made up of many individual pencil marks which come together to create a whole, which we thought was an apt metaphor for our community. The process was both meditative and physically laborious, generating a rhythm and sound of its own. Over the top of this were moments of deep conversation, humour and calm.

This work is for the LGBTQIA+ community and our allies. It is a celebration of LGBTQIA+ people, community and the human capacity to be creative together across differences.  

I would like to thank Kayte McSweeney for inviting me to facilitate this project and the British Museum for funding it. Thanks to curators Grant and Sarah for their time, knowledge, inspiration and support of the project. Most of all, thank you to the incredible group of talented artists who brought so much creativity, ideas, imagination and desire to work together to the project.

Bodies are Sacred is on display in the Great Court over the following weekends: 28–30 April; 3–6 May; and 21–23 June 2024.  

Michelangelo: the last decades opens 2 May 2024. Supported by James Bartos, Dunard Fund and a gift in memory of Melvin R. Seiden.

Funding for the conservation of the Epifania cartoon was generously provided through a grant from the Bank of America Art Conservation Project.