First presented at the 59th Biennale de Venezia in 2022, Venice
For her presentation at the 59th Venice Biennale, Hovnanian presented Angels Listening (2022), an interactive exhibition featuring seven large-scale bronze angels staged around a silver confessional box, each figure rendered in silence with its mouth “taped” shut. Viewers were invited to participate by relinquishing their innermost thoughts, whether repressed due to fear of judgment or sheer inability, by writing them onto pieces of ribbon, placing these ribbons into “La Scatola Catartica” (The Cathartic Box), and ringing the awakening bell, a symbol of the role of the angels as mute listeners. At the end of each day all of the new messages were compiled onto prayer-like mats and dispersed throughout the exterior gardens for future visitors to encounter and share as a collective stream-of-consciousness.
Through its integrated participatory process, Angels Listening offers viewers a chance to experience the liberation associated with catharsis and the sanctity of meditative environments in moments of shared isolation. Confronting the alienation of spiritual and communal experiences within the fabric of modern society due to political polarization and ongoing technological advancement, both heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic, Hovnanian’s exhibition seamlessly identifies and soothes shared wounds that have most-often been suffered alone.