As part of its cooperation with Lebanon, the Seine-Maritime Department is hosting the A roof for silence project at the Jumièges Abbey, designed by Lebanese architect Hala Wardé.
From June 15 to November 6, the installation A roof for silence, designed by Franco-Lebanese architect Hala Wardé, tries to answer the following question: should we be afraid of emptiness and silence?
It is to be discovered in the heart of the ruins of the abbey church Notre-Dame de Jumièges and its monumental open-air architecture. The central pavilion, symbolically exploded, is divided into concentric circles where the works of the artist Etel Adnan, entitled Olivea in homage to the goddess of the olive tree and representing sixteen thousand-year-old trees, are translated into ceramics. This ensemble symbolizes the “right to silence” and the “living together”. It was presented in 2021 in the Lebanese pavilion at the International Biennial of Architecture in Venice.
Etel Adnan, who disappeared on November 14 in Paris, is considered one of the greatest American-Lebanese artists and poets. Ceramics made from his paintings are one of his last projects. They are the centrepiece of the A roof of silence installation. Made by the Pôle Céramique Normandie with the collaboration of the Centre de Recherche sur les Arts du Feu et de la Terre de Limoges, they are a tribute to the Lebanese ceramicist tradition and the disappeared artist. This realization will give rise to an exchange between Norman and Lebanese ceramists in the framework of the cooperation between France and Lebanon implemented by the Department of the Seine-Maritime.
The photographic works of Fouad Elkoury around the millenary olive trees of Bchaaleh, fit into a second circle and resonate with the ceramics of Etel Adnan as well as his poetry. With respect for the abbey’s literary and artistic heritage, poetry and music are at the heart of the installation, which is based on an original sound composition, based on Etel Adnan’s collection of poems «Night».
This sound and spatial creation accompanies the visitor from his entry into the nave to the choir of the abbey, where fragments of voice and music are perceptible in each of the seven chapels reconstituted in a semicircle. These fragments are recomposed in a single score within the choir.