St Peter’s Basilica and cathedrals will be abused as event venues to mark a United Nations observance.
On 21 September, the UN International Day of Peace, St Peter's Basilica ’s will play Sounds of Loss, an international audio installation by German filmmaker Philip Gröning.
For 49 hours, 1,096 prerecorded clicks and taps will sound at irregular intervals, each intended to represent a person killed in war.
Gröning and his team recorded more than 24,000 sounds - from clocks, light switches, locks, pencils and other everyday objects. The installation is designed to span 21 September across all world time zones.
At the Vatican, the installation is located in the atrium of St Peter’s Basilica.
Other venues include the Berliner Dom and Zionskirche in Berlin, St John the Divine in New York, Verona Cathedral, St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne and the National Museum of Singapore.
The project is supported by the Dicastery for Culture and Education, the Dicastery for Communication and the Fabric of St Peter’s.
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti describes it as an opportunity to reflect on victims of war, while Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça calls Gröning a “master of silence.”
Gröning is best known to Catholic audiences for his 2005 documentary Into Great Silence about the Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse. Though raised Catholic, Gröning has described a complicated relationship with the Catholicism of his upbringing and said he disagrees with many things revealed to the Church.
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