the pavilion of the Holy Metropolis invites visitors to wander through a sound garden

the tabernacle of the holy seat suggests listening as a contemplative act

Hidden behind the walls of Venice’s Giardino Mistico dei Carmelitani Scalzi, the Pavilion of the Holy See at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia invites visitors to a quiet, deeply contemplative experience shaped through sound, nature and attentive listening. Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers, The Ear is the Eye of the Soul responds directly to the late Koyo Kouoh’s curatorial framework, In Minor Keys, turning listening into action contemplation, care and spiritual attention.

At the Giardino Mistico location, the experience begins by receiving a pair of headphones and a map that identifies the locations of each sound project hidden in the garden. As listeners slowly move through the space, the soundscape, composed by artists such as Brian Eno, FKA Twigs, Devonté Hynes, Patti Smith and others, constantly changes, with individual compositions emerging and fading according to their position within the space. In some areas, the works overlap briefly, creating subtle transitions between voices, songs, ambient frequencies and bird sounds. The experience unfolds through wandering and listening, allowing visitors to spend up to an hour moving freely among the paths, greenery, medicinal plants and shaded corners of the garden, gradually tuning into the contemplative rhythm of the pavilion.

all images by David Levene unless otherwise noted

shaping a meditative sound environment

In two locations in Venice, the pavilion draws from the writings and chants of Hildegard of Bingen to create a deeply meditative encounter based on sound, silence and the living rhythms of the natural world. Inside the hidden Carmelite garden in Cannaregio, the experience begins with an almost immediate slowing of perception. Removed from Venice’s busy paths and constant traffic, the space encourages visitors to tune into finer frequencies and focus on the sounds of wind blowing through leaves, insects moving through the soil, distant bells, footsteps softened by gravel.

Here, works by artists such as Brian Eno, FKA Twigs, Devonté Hynes, Patti Smith, Suzanne Ciani and Terry Riley emerge through headphones as prayer pieces, ambient compositions, spoken word and near-silence.

Central to the pavilion’s sonic architecture is the work of the Soundwalk Collective, whose custom-built listening instrument translates the hidden biological activity of the garden into an evolving sound composition. Bioelectric impulses from plants, water movement, insects, wood and electromagnetic rhythms become part of the exhibition’s living score, treating nature as a partner and asking visitors not just to listen, but to listen differently.

This caution extends directly from Hildegard’s worldview. For the 12th-century mystic, music and healing were inseparable from the body’s relationship to the universe, and the pavilion channels this philosophy through an exhibition language rooted in restraint rather than excess. In a Biennale often dominated by visual overload and relentless stimulation, The Ear is the Eye of the Soul feels radically quiet. However, within this stillness lies her emotional power. The pavilion creates a rare space for calm, for reflection and for reconnecting with the sensory dimensions of existence that modern life constantly pushes aside.

visitors stop under the garden’s trees and vines

embracing silence, stillness and minor key frequencies

Across town in Castello, the second venue at Complesso di Santa Maria Ausiliatrice extends this atmosphere to a contemporary scenario and live archive. Continuing the long-term restoration project of the Holy See that began during the 2025 Architecture Biennale, the site brings together Hildegardian texts, artist books by Ilda David’, architectural interventions by Tatiana Bilbao together with MAIO and DOGMA, and Alexander Kluge’s last work, completed shortly before his death. Spanning twelve stations throughout the partially renovated building, Kluge’s installation gives the pavilion its title, reinforcing the exhibition’s broader proposition that listening itself can become a form of viewing.

What ultimately lingers after exiting the Holy See Pavilion is a recalibration of attention. Choosing the garden as its central space and building the exhibition around acts of listening, slowness and collective contemplation, the pavilion fully embodies Kouoh’s invitation to tune into minor keys. It suggests that in the midst of contemporary exhaustion and accelerated noise, the most urgent gestures may no longer be the most powerful, but the quiet practices that reconnect us to each other, to the earth, and to the fragile emotional frequencies that still make healing possible.

Immersive sound unfolds through the headphones