Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska have turned the interior dome of the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière in Paris into Attendre ensemble, a newly commissioned installation presented as part of the Festival d'Automne and on view from 6 November to 20 December 2026. Curated by Clément Dirié, the work brings together painting, printmaking, textile and sound in a building long associated with the regulation and observation of women.

At the heart of the chapel, a concentric spiral unfurls through the dome, formed from a 200-metre length of African fabric overprinted with grids, architectural plans and fragments of the body. The vast cloth reworks the chapel's architecture into a space for remembrance, with the printed patterns echoing both institutional plans and the human figure.

Around the spiral stand 100 chairs, gathered as if women were waiting and listening together. Each chair is hand-painted and printed, given a name and adorned with a personal object. An immersive sound work surrounds them, in which women count to 60 in more than 30 languages — turning a place once built to watch over women into one where visitors join a collective act of naming, remembering and listening.

The commission continues nearly a decade of collaboration between Himid and Stawarska. It runs alongside Himid's A Fashionable Marriage at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, on view until 10 January 2027, and Himid will discuss her work with Griselda Pollock, moderated by Dirié, at the museum on 10 December at 7pm.