In sacred space—a temple, an artist’s room, a scholar’s library—we feel atmosphere: the presence of the devotion and art, study and ritual, that have taken place within it over decades or centuries. On Alcôve, we enter into auratic places to explore aesthetics, spirituality, history, magic— those qualities we perceive in sacred space, and which open up that space within us. By talking with their keepers, descending into their foundations, and researching their objects and texts, we try to understand what is in the atmosphere of these extraordinary places.
Notre Dame + Centre PompidouBy placing listening devices on the surfaces of built and natural monuments, artist Bill Fontana captures uncanny natural music that reveals that these bodies are alive with sound. Fontana's latest project amplifies the voice of Notre Dame. Since the devastating fire of 2019, the ringing of the cathedral's bells has ceased. To create his new work, Silent Echoes, Fontana attached sensors designed to detect vibrations to each of the ten bells of Notre Dame. As the bells reverberate in response to the ambient sounds of Paris the live feed is transmitted to a series of speakers at the Centre Pompidou, creating a haunting, immersive sound sculpture. In this episode, Alcôve's Alisa Carroll interviews Fontana in San Francisco, and very special guest Davia Nelson of The Kitchen Sisters meets with Fontana in Paris.
A disc of light, an object of worship, a portal in the vault of night. The moon has always opened up infinite fields of perception, and in a new Hammer Museum exhibition, Drawing Down the Moon, curator and scholar Allegra Pesenti enters those many realms. In our wide-ranging conversation with Pesenti, she traces lunar iconography from across centuries and cultures, expressing the moon's many aspects: mythical, magical, theological, scientific. Through her scholarship, we encounter Thessalian witches and modern Wiccans, Victor Hugo and 19th century astronomy, and discuss the work of “making the invisible visible.”
The Fontevristes, a monastic order led by women for 700 years, began in the medieval landscape of the Loire Valley. The great stone abbey was completed in twelfth century, and still stands in western France, a repository of centuries of meditation, prayer, and art. Today, Fontevraud Abbey is a secular center for art and culture, but historic voices still resonate within its walls. We talk with Director Martin Morillon, cultural mediator Zoé Wozniak, and contemporary artist François Réau about the spiritual and aesthetic atmosphere of this sacred space. Walk with us through garden, cloister, church, and crypt as we retrace the footsteps of the holy women of Fontevraud.
"We are trying to réenchantée le monde." Claude d'AnthenaiseIn his words, Claude d'Anthenaise's vision for Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature was to make “a museum of emotion,” with “a free and poetic spirit,” and “a climate of strangeness.” Within its 18th-century walls, he installed natural specimens alongside medieval artwork and pieces by contemporary artists, creating an uncanny and otherworldly atmosphere.In conversation with writer and host Alisa Carroll, d'Anthenaise guides us through the mythical, spiritual, historical, and aesthetic dimensions of the museum, and shares how, in the midst of the crisis of the Anthropocene, it has become a vehicle for cultivating new images of the wild, for galvanizing movements like ecofeminism, and for reintegrating the human and natural realms. Join us for a deep journey into the enchanted landscape d'Anthenaise has created. www.thealcoveproject.com | @thealcoveproject.com
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