The Ear is the Eye of the Soul

Opens Saturday, May 9

The exhibition spans two venues:

The Mystical Garden of the Discalced Carmelites featuring Benedictine Nuns of the Abbey of St. Hildegard Eibingen, Bhanu Kapil, Brian Eno, Carminho, Caterina Barbieri, Devonté Hynes, FKA Twigs, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, Jim Jarmusch, Kali Malone, Kazu Makino, Laraaji, Meredith Monk, Moor Mother, Otobong Nkanga, Patti Smith, Precious Okoyomon, Raúl Zurita, Soundwalk Collective, Suzanne Ciani, Terry Riley

Santa Maria Ausiliatrice Complex, Castello featuring Alexander Kluge, Ilda David', Tatiana Bilbao - MAIO Architects - DOGMA

Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers

The Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See presents The Ear is the Eye of the Soul, an ensemble of new commissions by 24 artists. Conceived in response to Koyo Kouoh's curatorial proposition for Biennale Arte 2026 to slow down and attune to a quieter register, the exhibition takes the form of a sonic prayer, a call to the contemplative act of listening, inspired by the life and legacy of Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), medieval abbess, poet, healer and composer.

Presented in Venice's ancient Giardino Mistico (Mystic Garden), a monastic green space hidden within a 17th-century convent cared for by the Discalced Carmelite community. The first site of the Pavilion features new sound works by 20 contemporary composers, musicians and poets, responding to Hildegard's chants, writings, and visionary images through voice, instrumentation, and at times, silence.

In the garden, visitors are invited to enter into a contemplative listening experience through headphones, with each of these new commissions, which have been composed into a sonic whole by Soundwalk Collective that also has created a bespoke sonic instrument that listens to the garden in real time, translating subtle natural rhythms, including bioelectrical activity in plants and the micro-acoustics of wind, water, wood, insects and soil, into an evolving composition. As Pope Leo XIV said: "The logic of algorithms tends to repeat what ‘works,' but art opens up what is possible. Not everything has to be immediate or predictable".

Across the city in Castello, the Pavilion's second venue is the Complex of Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, which becomes a contemporary scriptorium. The venue hosts a living archive, Alexander Kluge's final testament, and the twinned sonic liturgy of the nuns of Eibingen Abbey. The archive has been curated in close collaboration with Sister Maura Zátonyi OSB and the St. Hildegard Academy, whose teachings, research, and preservation of Hildegard's legacy helped to inspire the artists and collaborators of the Pavilion. Within the archive, visitors encounter a curated multilingual library of Hildegardian texts, artist books by Ilda David', and new monastery architecture by Tatiana Bilbao Estudio - MAIO Architects - DOGMA.

The venue presents the final work of celebrated filmmaker and author Alexander Kluge, completed before his death on 25 March 2026 aged 94, a towering twelve-station film and image installation unfolding across three rooms within the industrial logic of the building's ongoing restoration. Kluge also gave the Holy See Pavilion its title: The Ear is the Eye of the Soul, inspired by Hildegard of Bingen's writings.

The presentation at the Complex of Santa Maria Ausiliatrice is an evolution of the Holy See's Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, building on and continuing their sustained commitment to this site and the continuation of the architectural project of Tatiana Bilbao Estudio and MAIO Architects, Opera Aperta (2025).

Hildegard of Bingen was officially declared a Saint and Doctor of the Catholic Church by Pope Benedict XVI, in 2012.

Commissioner: Card. José Tolentino de Mendonça, Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See

Production: Nicola Picco & Raul Betti – Mattia Marzaro Soundwalk Collective & Tessa Nijdam – Elena Origliasso