The miracle had been predicted for three months already. The lady, dressed all in white, chose three young shepherds as messengers.

The village of Fátima in Portugal has only a few thousand inhabitants. Yet, the news spread like wildfire. On the morning of October 13, 1917, 70,000 people—devout, curious, skeptical, and those with nothing better to do—gathered in the pouring rain. An eclectic group of people in search of as many truths as fictions.

The miracle was a long time coming. Then, the sky opened, the clouds parted, and the silver disc began its wild journey. Suddenly, the grass was no longer grass but shimmering red, yellow, or purple. The sun no longer burned the eye but accompanied it in an incongruous, jerky dance. Prophetic. Everyone saw, but not everyone believed.

In this solar dance, two artists found each other. One a photographer, the other a sculptor, both sensitive to the movements of light, the metamorphoses of materials, the slippage of reality into imaginative, spiritual, and poetic realms. They then inhabited the ruins, welcomed the stories, and juxtaposed their gestures to erect cathedrals of light around Fátima. In this dialogue between images and materials, past and present, narratives are reinvented, opening new imaginaries and spaces of resonance.

A century later, the echo of the miracle endures. See how the light, tirelessly, shapes the world as it pleases. It envelops and sculpts, alters and illuminates, becomes prism and mirror. Mirage or miracle—be witnesses in your turn.

Excerpt from a text by Eléonore Simon (freelance photographer and writer)