BRAZILIAN artist Laura Belém has filled one of Liverpool’s historical buildings with 1,000 glass bells for the city’s Biennial festival of contemporary art.

The Oratory, next to Liverpool Cathedral, is open to the public from today ahead of the 10-week event’s launch in September.

A polyphonic sound track will be pumped through loudspeakers in the Grade I-listed building, telling the ancient legend of a temple of 1,000 bells that was built on an island.

Belém, who first heard the story during a yoga class, said: “The legend is that a temple of 1,000 bells was built on an island and over the centuries it sank into the sea.

“Then a sailor hears about the legend and someone tells him the bells are still ringing on the bottom of the ocean, so it’s about his attempts to hear the lost music of the bells.”

Made at one of the UK’s few surviving traditional glass blowing workshops, the Glass Blobbery, in North Wales, the bells are suspended from the ceiling.

They are clapperless with the only sound coming from the recorded audio, intended as a visual metaphor to match the narrated legend of the lost music in the depths of the ocean.

Belém said: “I wanted the whole thing to give the impression of water, which is why the bells are made of glass – their transparency alludes to water and has a fragility.

“At first I had the idea of installing the piece in a church, but I found this space is perfect because it’s not too big.

“The piece is quite intimate.”