Rachel Lee Hovnanian: Angels Listening

Centro Studi e Documentazione della Cultura Armena (CSDCA) presents “Angels Listening,” an intimate and immersive exhibition of the works of Rachel Lee Hovnanian curated by Annalisa Bugliani. The exhibition in Venice, installed in the quarters and gardens of the Biblioteca Zenobiana del Temanza, comprises a space for meditation on personal identity, knowledge, time, and interpersonal experience. It features seven large-scale angels cast in white bronze and “silenced” by Hovnanian with the use of bronze-sculpted pieces of tape placed over their mouths. The angels surround a silver confessional entitled The Cathartic Box, into which the viewer is invited to place a ribbon containing their innermost thoughts—whether repressed due to fear or the inability to voice them. At the end of each day, the messages are removed and compiled on mats dispersed throughout the garden, constituting a collective stream-of-consciousness with ongoing interpretation. According to Hovnanian, “Angels Listening offers a space that transforms hundreds of silenced voices into a chorus of confessions, demonstrating the liberation associated with catharsis and the sanctity of meditative environments in moments of shared isolation.”