Peterborough Cathedral to host pandemic artworks

• Watch a report by ITV Anglia's Elodie Harper

Peterborough Cathedral is to display artwork made by local people during lockdown as part of a new exhibition which opens on Friday.

The Dean of the Cathedral hoped it would act as a way of helping people process the difficulties they had been through during the pandemic.

A call had gone out for artwork, and there had been an extraordinary response from the community.

"We were hoping we could find a way of reflecting back on the experience of covid and give people a way to demonstrate how they met that challenge through art, through creativity, painting, sculpture," the Very Rev Chris Dalliston said.

"I hope lots of people will come because this is a good opportunity to see how creative people in Peterborough are, ordinary people, not professionals," he added.

Some of the work was made as a direct response to lockdown with one work called Hairy Times, depicting a mad March hare to symbolise a topsy turvy world.

Artists also painted pictures of people who inspired them during lockdown, including the region's very own Captain Sir Tom Moore.

One of the artists, Kathryn Glover, tried to capture some of the moments many families experienced in her artworks.

"I was inspired by the famous illustrator, Sir Quentin Blake, who painted 10 rainbow drawings to raise money for the NHS. That sparked my own idea to do my own collection of drawings. Each about a rainbow and a snap shot into the lives of lockdown," Kathryn Glover said.

If artists had any works they would like to include in the exhibition, the Dean encouraged them to bring their artwork to the cathedral on Monday.