The Geometry of Memory: Reclaiming England’s Forgotten Sacred Art

What if Englishness wasn’t just kings and wars and wet weather? What if it also meant resurrection dances, hidden shapes in church pavements, and the sacred proportions of garnet crystals? What if we’ve forgotten more than we ever realised – and what if that forgetting was the real tragedy?

This August, an art exhibition is opening in Colchester that feels less like a gallery show and more like an act of cultural recovery. Number in Time and Space: Exploring Plato’s Fifth Element runs from 20–31 August 2025 at The Minories, and it’s the debut outing for a project that may just rewire how we think about English identity.

The exhibition is the work of BYRGA GENIHT – two friends and researchers, James Wenn and James Syrett, who have quietly spent the last six years uncovering something extraordinary: a buried tradition in English art and architecture that stretches from Roman Britain to Westminster Abbey, and from medieval mysticism to modern sculpture. Their work is meticulous, imaginative, and deeply moving. It is, in the truest sense, a resurrection.

A Sacred Geometry Hiding in Plain Sight

At the heart of their discoveries lies an unlikely shape: the rhombic dodecahedron – a lozenge-faced crystal, Platonic in origin, and tied to honour and virtue. In the world of BYRGA GENIHT, this shape is more than maths: it’s a spiritual and cultural touchstone, encoded in ancient flag designs, cathedral pavements, and the floor beneath the coronation throne.

But the exhibition isn’t about geometry for geometry’s sake. It’s about meaning. It’s about a forgotten language of pattern and ritual – one that once guided art, music, dance, and belief.

Take, for instance, the dance of resurrection: an eight-person formation circling a central figure. You can trace its shape through medieval carvings, Tudor architecture, even the guards who encircle a new monarch during coronation. It’s a pattern of protection, rebirth, and deep collective memory – and like so much else in this exhibition, it’s been hiding in plain sight.

The Artworks: Memory, Loss, and a Little Awe

The show itself brings together contemporary sculpture, historic artefacts, mathematical diagrams, and a genuinely spellbinding set of animations. Some works are playful; others are haunting.

One of my favourites – for its title alone – is The Physical Impossibility of Thronosis in a World Without Dancers. It’s a triptych of ambrotype photographs and a hand-carved chair that tells a tragic story: a sacred ritual forgotten, its objects misunderstood, its meaning lost to time. That piece alone deserves national attention.

Then there’s In Hoc Signo, a sculptural pairing that visualises how light could be used to create a hologram of the universe’s sacred form. Or the Holy Almandal – a medieval instrument reconstructed as a pyramidal, incense-filled beam-splitter that summons an “angel” into the smoke. It sounds bizarre, but it’s beautiful.

The work doesn’t just try to preserve cultural knowledge – it invites us to feel what that knowledge meant.

Why This Matters Now

We live in a country that often struggles with its own identity. “Englishness” has been politicised, diluted, or dismissed. But BYRGA GENIHT’s work points to something deeper – a sense of English identity rooted not in nostalgia or nationalism, but in craft, symbol, community, and sacred proportion.

It’s a vision of England as a place of mysticism and memory – a country whose cultural roots stretch across millennia, and whose rituals still shape us, even if we no longer recognise their names.

This exhibition isn’t just about the past. It’s about revival.

Visit the Exhibition (and Tell People!)

🗓 20–31 August 2025
📍 The Minories, Colchester
🌐 byrga.co.uk/preview

There’s also a Private View on Saturday 23 August, from 6–8pm – an intimate event with wine, projection art, and the opportunity to speak with the artists themselves. If you’re interested, keep an eye on the BYRGA website!

Whether you’re a lover of art, history, pattern, or simply want to experience something a little magical, Number in Time and Space is well worth the journey.