Vatican’s sound pavilion

The Vatican will stage a sound-based pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, shifting its focus from objects on walls to works heard through headphones. (artnews.com) The project is titled “The Ear Is the Eye of the Soul” and brings together 24 artists, poets, musicians, architects, and filmmakers, including Brian Eno, Patti Smith, FKA twigs, Jim Jarmusch, Devonté Hynes, Meredith Monk, and Tatiana Bilbao. It is curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers in collaboration with Soundwalk Collective. (theartnewspaper.com) The works will be split across two Venice sites: the Mystical Garden of the Discalced Carmelites in Cannaregio and the Complesso di Santa Maria Ausiliatrice in Castello. In the garden, visitors will hear newly commissioned pieces that respond to the chants, writings, and visions of Saint Hildegard of Bingen. (artsy.net) Saint Hildegard was a 12th-century abbess, composer, poet, and mystic, and the pavilion frames her as the anchor for a contemporary program about listening, voice, and spiritual reflection. The Vatican said the presentation was conceived in response to “In Minor Keys,” the 2026 Biennale exhibition planned by the late curator Koyo Kouoh. (artsy.net) That places the Holy See’s pavilion inside a Biennale already shaped by Kouoh’s quieter curatorial premise. La Biennale di Venezia says the 61st International Art Exhibition will run from May 9 to November 22, 2026, with previews on May 6, 7, and 8. (labiennale.org) The second venue will function as a contemporary scriptorium, borrowing the medieval model of a room for copying and illuminating manuscripts. It will include Alexander Kluge’s final work, a twelve-station film and image installation completed before his death in March 2026, along with a living archive of multilingual texts and monastery architecture by Tatiana Bilbao. (artsy.net) The headphone format is central to the presentation. ARTnews reported that visitors will move through the garden while listening to pieces built from voice, instrumentation, and, in some cases, silence. (artnews.com) The Vatican used its 2024 Biennale pavilion to draw attention to women incarcerated at the Giudecca prison, where Maurizio Cattelan worked with inmates on the project. ARTnews said the 2026 edition continues the Holy See’s use of the Biennale as a platform for contemporary art with an explicitly moral and spiritual frame. (artnews.com) This year, that frame is less about a single installation than a dispersed act of listening across convent gardens, archives, and film rooms. By May, Biennale visitors will be able to hear how the Vatican wants its pavilion to speak. (theartnewspaper.com)