The miracle had been foretold for three months already. The lady, dressed all in white, chose three young shepherds as her messengers.
The village of Fátima in Portugal has only a few thousand souls. Yet, the news spread around like wildfire.
On the morning of October 13, 1917, 70,000 souls—devout believers, the curious, skeptics, and those with nothing better to do—gathered under the pouring rain. An eclectic group of people in search of as many truths as fictions.
The miracle kept them waiting. Then, the sky opened up, the clouds parted, and the silver disk began its wild dance. Suddenly, the grass was no longer grass but flickers of red, yellow, and violet. The sun no longer burned the eyes but instead accompanied them in an incongruous, jerky, prophetic dance. Everyone saw it, 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 transformations of matter, and the shift of reality toward imagined, spiritual, poetic realms. So, they embraced the ruins, welcomed the words, and brought their gestures together to build cathedrals of light around Fátima.
In this dialogue between images and materials, past and present, narratives are reinvented, opening new imaginations and resonant spaces. A century later, the echo of the miracle endures. See how light, tirelessly, shapes the world as it pleases. It envelops and sculpts, alters and illuminates, acts as both prism and mirror. Mirage or miracle—become a witness in turn.
“The Miracle of the Sun,” by Marguerite Bornhauser and Marion Flament, is on view at Galerie Porte B. in Paris from March 15 to April 12, 2025.
