Dimitris Foutris’s photographs depict a similar perspective, from a vantage point that looks up into the vast interior spaces of Byzantine churches. The building’s structural lines are described with broad planes that rise above us on all sides, architecturally engineered to reflect light and sound. They invite the viewer’s eyes to glide slowly along their expanses and linger within the vaulted ceilings. As the architect Peter Zumthor describes, they “define and separate an area of interior space from the space that surrounds them” and “contain a part of the infinite spatial continuum in a kind of open vessel .... Buildings that have a strong impact always convey an intense feeling of their spatial quality. They embrace the mysterious void called space in a special way and make it vibrate.”

There are infinities within these spiritual vessels and the massive interior spaces they contain. To look up into these spaces can inspire an impressive sensation of peering into the cosmos. However, there is a difference between beholding an image and beholding a sound. To behold an image usually means to stand outside of it, but to behold a sound is to be immersed within it.

Amelia Ishmael & Elodie Lesourd