Shezad Dawood's Leviathan Exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral Explores Migration, Climate Change, and Mental Health

Shezad Dawood's exhibition Leviathan at Salisbury Cathedral presents a multidisciplinary project connecting climate change, migration, and mental health through various installations. Suspended paintings from his 2017 Labanof Cycle in the nave depict possessions of migrants who died crossing between Tripoli and Lampedusa, screenprinted on Fortuny fabrics. The exhibition includes AnthropoPangaea (Hapalochlaena lunulata) (2022), a wall collage in the north transept showing the ancient supercontinent Pangaea. Two episodes from Dawood's ten-part film series Leviathan Cycle (2017–) are featured: Episode 7: Africana, Ken Bugul & Nemo (2022) in the Morning Chapel imagines Dakar as a postcapitalist society, while Episode 8: Cris, Sandra, Papa & Yasmine (2023) in the Trinity Chapel blends rainforest imagery with Guarani creation narratives. In the Chapter House, near an original Magna Carta copy, Where do we go now? (2017) reinterprets John Sturt's frontispiece to Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub, replacing sailors with refugees and a UN worker. The exhibition runs through 4 February, creating tensions between Indigenous cosmologies and Christian iconography, and between religious and humanistic beliefs. Dawood, an agnostic, questions how to find new empathy and establish ethical standards in the exhibition guide.