Oliver Laxe makes his museum debut with HU/وَ, an immersive installation staged in the Espacio 1 of the Reina Sofía, converting the Sabatini building into a spiritual and sensory threshold. The work is tied to his feature Sirāt, which has earned nominations for Best International Feature Film and Best Original Score at the 2026 Golden Globes and has already been preselected in five Oscar categories.
The title HU/وَ draws on the Arabic word for “He,” considered the first sonic manifestation of the divine—the breath that births creation. In this first museum-focused commission, Laxe invites visitors to listen as they move, to feel as they watch, and to step into a space where cinema, ritual, and landscape intersect.
The installation unfolds across two rooms. In the entrance hall, a pyramid of loudspeakers pulses with a continuous vibration, functioning as a rite of entry. The main chamber presents three looping projections that reveal a stark desert landscape: austere temples, monolithic amplifiers rising like stones, and dancers moving beneath an unforgiving sun. Laxe captured this material a decade ago in Iran, drawn to the sacred geometry that marks the passage between the visible and the subtle.
In the context of Islam, sirāt is the bridge that crosses hell toward paradise—the image of spiritual passage. For HU/وَ, Laxe revisits his collaboration with Kangding Ray, the composer of Sirāt, to craft the immersive sound design that envelops the installation. The work sits at the confluence of cinema, ritual, and landscape, inviting audiences to listen with their bodies as they perceive.
“I hope it will be a synesthetic experience,” says Laxe. “A mix of sensations through the body, brought forth by sound and images.” Before turning to cinema, Laxe created installations, and HU/وَ continues that lineage—an invitation to feel as much as to see.
Accompanying HU/وَ is a curated retrospective of Laxe’s four films, complemented by another four works selected by the filmmaker to converse with his oeuvre: Highway (1999) by Sergei Dvortsevoy, The Naked Island (1960) by Kaneto Shindo, The Seasons (1975) by Artavazd Peleshyan, and Trás-os-Montes (1976) by António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro. The installation unfolds in concert with this four-film survey, creating a dialogue across time and geography that mirrors the transgressive path at the heart of Sirāt.
If you’re exploring the intersection of sacred geometry, sound design, and cinematic memory, HU/وَ offers a contemplative journey through space and time. The work invites you to walk slowly, listen intently, and let the desert’s vast silence unfold around you.
Photo credits: The photograph comes from the artist’s archive.
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