Durham

On September 5 2023, Durham Cathedral, built in Durham, County Durham, North East England between 1093 and 1133, uprooted itself briefly from its hilltop in between a curve of the River Wear and travelled to Durham, North Carolina, USA. 

This video, captured by the artist Huge Sillytoe who was born and raised in Durham, County Durham, shows the cathedral’s growing confusion as they wander, completely lost, through the streets of Durham, North Carolina.

Durham, North Carolina sits across the stolen land of the Eno, Tuscarora, and Occaneechi Native American peoples at 6042 kilometres from Durham, County Durham.

Durham, North Carolina is one of thousands of settlements across colonized areas of the world that are named after places in the home countries of those who killed, raped, and enslaved indigenous people in the process of stealing the land they lived on and imposing the myth of property.

So a word, a sound, like ‘Durham’, can simultaneously hold all the tenderness and warmth of home;  all the cruelty and violence of genocide; all the ridiculousness of being.