Visual and sound installation for the eighth centenary of the death of Saint Francis of Assisi (1226–2026)
Eight hundred years after the death of Francis of Assisi, the Italian Cultural Institute of Beirut imagines a work that does not merely commemorate, but becomes experience: a path of light, sound, and matter to be crossed in silence. Light and Dust is a travelling installation conceived to adapt to the ancient places of Lebanon, such as a caravanserai, a cloister, an ancient ruin, or, more generally, spaces where stone still speaks and time breathes.
Set in the magnificent garden of the Silk Museum of Bsous, the installation transforms the visitor from spectator into actor: it invites them to walk, becoming an inner wanderer along a route marked by dust and earth, by suspended veils that filter the light, by fragments of Franciscan texts engraved on stone, paper, wood, and ceramic. The sound remains discreet, almost imperceptible: a breath, a breath of wind, taut strings and subdued beats that interweave with the footsteps, up to a white and bare room, flooded with light, where everything becomes stillness and something, at last, can be heard.
Born of an Italian concept and brought to life through the collaboration of Lebanese workers, musicians, and artisans, inspired by the minimalism of Assisi and La Verna as well as by the earthly painting of Giotto, the work sinks its roots into the message of Francis without turning into preaching. Spiritual and non-confessional, it speaks to all religious communities and to those who, outside any faith, seek in silence a path to meaning. Because Francis, a man of encounter and humility, knew how to converse with different worlds, passing through them unarmed: and in a country where even matter has remained wounded, this artistic gesture keeps hope alive, revealing the beauty hidden in the imperfect, in the crack, in the dust, there where the eye stops, but the gaze of the heart continues to see.
Concept and Artistic Direction
Angelo Gioè Exhibition
Curator / Spatial Development
Soula Saad
Project Management and Production Coordination
Dana Michael