Vastitas Anima

The Premonstratensian Order order was founded in 1120 by St Norbert at Prémontré, near Laon, France. In 1143 anno domini, the Order extended towards England where its legacy remains: thus Bayham Abbey. Dissolved under the Reformation, Bayham Abbey was then reconstructed in response to the 18th century' early penchant for romantic nostalgia. In some respects, the visual representation of an epoch of high medieval monasticism remains mostly an impermeable phantasy for the postmodern thinker. Yet the spiritual grounds of Bayham Abbey, sacralised by the French Order, desecrated in the Protestant protests of the Reformation, and then anaesthetised into cosmetic reconstruction, still bears its spiritual portent vividly. Vastitas Anima therefore, is a personal response to recover visual ground from both the Reformation stance and the 18th century stance towards the sacred.