by Tom Lawton

ONE MINUTE OF PEACE — PASS IT ON

YOU ARE
ALREADY HERE

A BEAUTIFUL VISION

To celebrate being alive.
To create moments of wonder, stillness and connection.
And to bring them to people who might not so easily find them for themselves.

Wonder playing on a television in a communal care setting

One Wonder. One place. One frame. One hour.

Not everyone can travel to the places.
The places can travel to them.

The only constant is change.

The project

Twelve archetypes of space.

We understand archetypes in people: recurring forms that appear across cultures and generations. Perhaps places have archetypes too.This project explores twelve of them — human, natural and machine.

Fitzrovia Chapel
01
THE SACRED
Makes us quiet and attentive;
aware of something beyond ourselves.
Fitzrovia Chapel
LONDON · ENGLAND
“A place built for people who needed somewhere to be still.”
Yate
02
THE COMMONS
Where strangers coexist;
the shared space of human life.
Yate
ENGLAND
“An ordinary hour in an ordinary place.”
Heathrow Terminal 3
03
THE THRESHOLD
Neither here nor there;
a place of arrival and departure.
Heathrow Terminal 3
LONDON · ENGLAND
“Everyone is leaving. I once chose to stay.”
Kirkby Malzeard
04
THE REFUGE
Shelter and safety;
somewhere the world cannot reach.
Kirkby Malzeard
YORKSHIRE · ENGLAND
“One hour. One bus.”
Greenwich Foot Tunnel
05
THE PASSAGE
Space experienced through movement;
somewhere we pass through.
Greenwich Foot Tunnel
LONDON · ENGLAND
“Everyone is going somewhere. Wonder isn’t.”
West Kington Nurseries
06
THE MACHINE
The inhabited hum of systems;
infrastructure all around us.
West Kington Nurseries
WILTSHIRE · ENGLAND
“Can beauty be found in a sound I once couldn't bear?”
Puzzlewood
07
THE WILD
Space that exists
without needing us.
Puzzlewood
FOREST OF DEAN · ENGLAND
“The forest carries on without us.”
Druidstone
08
THE EDGE
Where one condition
meets another.
Druidstone
PEMBROKESHIRE · WALES
“The closer you get to the edge, the more people can be trusted.”
Sycamore Gap
09
THE HORIZON
Space that opens outward;
attention drawn towards distance.
Sycamore Gap
NORTHUMBERLAND · ENGLAND
“Looking towards something that is no longer there.”
Broughton Sanctuary
10
THE LABYRINTH
Complexity and repetition;
the experience of losing our bearings.
Broughton Sanctuary
YORKSHIRE · ENGLAND
“Sometimes getting lost is the way through.”
Bhaktivedanta Manor
11
THE HEARTH
Gathering, warmth and nourishment;
the closeness of other people.
Bhaktivedanta Manor
WATFORD · ENGLAND
“Someone arrives. Someone feeds them.”
Salisbury Plain
12
THE VOID
Emptiness, absence and silence;
room for imagination to enter.
Salisbury Plain
WILTSHIRE · ENGLAND
“At a tank crossing. But the tank never comes.”

The object remains. Everything around it changes.Sound. Light. Place. People. Time.

TWELVE PLACES.
TWELVE HOURS.
TWELVE TIMES WE STOOD STILL.

We went looking for the twelve archetypes.

We found them here.

And then something happened that the project could never have planned.

Somewhere else invited Wonder in.

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

BETHLEHEM

Not the thirteenth archetype. The destination.

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh, founder and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Bethlehem, invited me to bring Wonder to the museum.

Wonder leaves Britain.
Attention travels.

THE BETHLEHEM QUEST →

If you like this, you’ll love the story of how it came to be.

AN INVENTOR’S TALE