York Minster
Cathedral

How do you raise £1.4 million in a single evening for medieval glass conservation — without turning a 900-year-old cathedral into a spectacle? York Minster needed a new kind of experience. One that honoured the space while transforming it.

York Minster — one of the most significant Gothic cathedrals in the world. Two million annual visitors. 900 years of heritage. The cathedral needed to fund the conservation of its medieval stained glass without compromising the authenticity that makes it sacred.

The challenge wasn’t projection. It was reverence. How do you fill a 65-metre Gothic nave with light and still let 900 years of architecture lead? We started with the glass. The Minster’s medieval stained glass — the very heritage the fundraising campaign existed to protect — became the visual language of the experience.

The result: a 10-minute artwork across the entire nave vault and the 20-metre × 40-metre West Wall, known as “The Heart of Yorkshire,” using 11 projectors in a custom cradle configuration. Surround-sound composed by Karen Monid. Music from the Minster organist and choir.

The first installation required a 3D recreation of the entire nave from laser scan data, with bespoke reversed UV mapping techniques developed specifically for the project. The visual content drew directly from the Minster’s medieval stained glass — the very heritage being preserved became the source material for the art.