Sophie Hacker: Elements Windows

Title:  Elements Windows
Artist: Sophie Hacker
Location: The Chapel, St Antony’s Priory, Durham
Date: 2025

This work was shortlisted for the A+C Award for a permanent art commission within the building or grounds of a place of worship in the UK 2026.

Bryan Biggs, chair of the judging panel for the A+C Award writes:

“We visited Durham to see Elements Windows by Sophie Hacker, installed last summer in the chapel at St Antony’s Priory. Built in 1990, the chapel’s intention was always to have a stained glass for the east window, and in 2024 Hacker was selected to take the project forward with an abstract design that was deemed appropriate to the simplicity of the building’s architecture. Following a site visit, the artist proposed a comprehensive design encompassing all the windows, on an elemental theme, using Water for the principal ‘east’ window and Earth, Fire and Air for the remaining three, while also meeting part of the brief to incorporate the idea of Angels.  

Hacker experimented with different enamels, choosing a transparent type which, when combined in double glazed units with a specialist clear glass, provided the clarity and translucency the trustees were seeking, while also improving the priory’s ecological impact and significantly enriching the transmission of light into the chapel, as sunlight streaming in changes the atmosphere of the chapel throughout the day and the seasons. 

We learned that the windows have added greatly to the liturgical and spiritual impact of the chapel, and it was clear that their addition had completed the harmony of the in-the-round architecture, and seemed, according to one of the trustees, ‘to have always meant to be there’.”

Further information

Medium: Stained glass
Permanent display
See Hacker’s Elements Windows on the Ecclesiart map here.
Commissioner: Trustees of St Antony’s Priory SSM

Other artworks in churches by Sophie Hacker:‍ ‍