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We offer daily services and a creative programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
Book tickets for Black History Month, Tue 8 Oct, 7.30pm, conversation with Revd Dr Ayla Lepine about history, racial justice today and the complexity and challenge of St James’s parish history.
St James’s hosts inclusive services and a cultural programme. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
St James’s is a place to explore, reflect, pray, and support all who are in need. We are a Church of England parish in the Anglican Communion. This is a place for everyone who’s wondering about life’s big questions and striving for a better world.
We host a year-round cultural programme encompassing music, visual art and spoken word, drawing on St James’s rich cultural history including artists, writers and musicians Mary Beale, Mary Delany, William Blake, Ottobah Cugoano and Leopold Stokowski.
We try to put our faith into action by educating ourselves and speaking out on issues of injustice, especially concerning refugees, asylum, earth and racial justice, and LGBTQ+ issues.
We aspire to be a home where everyone can belong. We’re known locally and globally for our unique history and beauty, as well as faith in action, creativity and the arts, and a commitment to social and environmental justice.
We strive to be a Eucharist-centred, diverse and inclusive Christian community promoting life in abundance, wellbeing and dignity for all.
St James’s Piccadilly has been at the heart of its community since 1684. We invite you to play your part in securing this historic place for generations to come.
It costs us £3,500 per day to enable us to keep our doors open to all who need us
Your donation will help us restore our garden in Piccadilly as part of The Wren Project, making it possible for us to welcome over 300,000 people from all faiths and walks of life seeking tranquillity and inspiration each year.
St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
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12 – 16 October 2022
St James’s Piccadilly presents Miserere, a new commission of artwork in the sanctuary of the church by Jesse Darling 12 -16 October 2022. An accompanying programme of events and music involving Freya Lily, Trans Voices, Cherif Hashizume, Sarah Boulton, okcandice and others will take place across the week, together with regular church services.
Watch recordings of Jesse Darling events at St James’s on YouTube:
Jesse Darling opening performances 13 Oct Jesse Darling in conversation with Lucy Winkett Trans Voices – Soundbath Performance 14 Oct
Following a short-term residency based in the bell tower at St James’s Piccadilly, Miserere is a substantial new work in the form of a choir or congregation, assembled in the open sanctuary of the working church. A plethora of second hand radios – each tuned just off station – crown metal bases suggestive of human shapes, alluding at once to a sense of possibility, and of failure in communication and transcendence. Alongside this new work, the artist will show two existing artworks that also act in dialogue with the church setting.
The title Miserere is Latin for mercy, or to have mercy, but can also allude to a vomiting sickness or to the small ledge on the underside of a medieval church choir-stall seat, often termed misericord or mercy-seat. Darling’s interest in religion is seen in works exploring faith, hope, hubris, community and desire and their limits, through installation, drawing, text, and sculpture. The works often expose how systems of power including government, religion, ideology, technology and empire can be as fragile and precarious as mortal bodies.
Miserere is situated at the front of the church, and its presence spans the regular rhythm of church life and services, into which will be woven a new acoustic programme of music programmed by producer Didier Rochard and the team at St James’s, responding directly to Darling’s artworks: pianist and composer Freya Lily will perform a dreamy neoclassical piano set for quiet reflection and a one-off improvised experimental piece; a small choir of singers from Trans Voices, the UK’s only professional choir for trans people will perform semi-structured and experimental works with spoken word, drawing on the lived experience of trans and non-binary performers within the choir; and electronic artist Cherif Hashizumewill improvise a new piece using self-developed music performance software and hardware modular synthesizer system.
