Three Engagement of Silence

Barbora Kováčová

A DAY WHEN THE SEA AND CHURCH UNITE AND THE LANDSCAPE PERFORMS ITS
OWN LITURGY

(Happening, site-specific, Stevens Klints, 2023)
Barbora Kováčová & Lucia Králiková

Voice: Victor Kassebeer
Accordion: Lau Andersson & Barbora Kováčová

The pace of slowness, heavy soil, metal cups clinking, a dog’s paws, sniffs of cold, the stone floor of the church space, snipping sissors, breaths of many in synchronized silence, brass censer, morning birds, and distant waves, softening the accordion, resounding and returning to non-sound, pokes and pulls, all that murmur of silent life.

It’s the third year we have met at Stevens Klint in Gamle Kirke to be part of this silent
happening, honoring the place by dwelling in silence.

On March 16th, 1928, a cliff at Stevens Klint collapsed, causing the altar of an old church
and its adjacent cemetery to fall into the sea. Ninety-six years later, we commemorated
this event by gathering at dawn (5-6 AM, when the altar collapsed) in the church, engaging
in silent embroidery as a form of non-verbal prayer. The sea symbolically replaced the
church altar, with the landscape performing its own liturgy.

The happening began with a procession. Winds and hymns led towards the church. Chalk
cliffs, a vertical chain of white upheavals. A Zoom recorder lay in the basket beside the
stones and singing cups. It moved here and there until it reached a length of 154’.

The composition on accordions was played not for people, but for the place—for the
church itself, for the sea. We chanted for the space, not in the space.

The happening takes place every year on March 16th between 5-9 AM in Højerup Gamle
Kirke.

Poetry of Silence

Resounding the Silence