Jaume Plensa was the winning artist for a competition inviting five artists to create an iconic and symbolic work, to be integrated into the aerial space above the Choir of Chichester cathedral.
Seeking to emphasize the powerful spirituality of the space, the fundamental basis of Plensa’s proposal Together was inspired by Christ ‘the teacher’, his hand raised. The proposed sculpture fabricated in letters of different alphabets, was to appear as ethereal, largely transparent form within space. The letters composing the hand were sourced from eight different alphabets (Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, and Chinese) as a metaphor of diversity, representing multiple origins, cultures and backgrounds. Although notionally winning the competition, the proposal was rejected by the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England.
The work was eventually realized at the Venice Biennale in 2015 within the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore.