Water is a common thread running through the work of Senegalese painter Alioune Diagne, who draws on the daily lives of fishermen and scenes of coastal life, but also on the consequences of the plundering of fish stocks in Africa and the human tragedies linked to illegal migration. In Géeju Neefare – Plastic Sea, he denounces the plastic pollution rampant along the Senegalese coast, depleting vital marine resources. This painting, with its bright colours and subtle clarity, depicts two women and a child in a pirogue close to the shore. As the viewer lingers over this scene, composed of a multitude of signs typical of his technique, he gradually discovers that the abstract shapes surrounding the boat are actually piles of plastic waste. In the background, empty pirogues evoke the fishermen driven into exile by the resulting shortage of fish. The title accentuates this double issue: Plastic Sea denounces the ecological emergency, while Géeju Neefare – unclean water in Wolof – extends the theme to the migratory tragedies that are so prevalent in Senegal. A note of hope remains, however, in the clear ocean on the horizon and the figure of the child, who in the artist’s eyes embodies another possible future.

Nafura – or fountain in Arabic – is the title of Paul Heintz’s film. In the boredom of an evening’s wandering, three friends have fun reflecting on the symbolism of the fountain in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Their discussions about this aquatic monument, built by the king in the 1980s, turn into reflections on power and the forbidden. A road-movie of Saudi youth in search of freedom. A manifestation of the power of patriarchy, an affront to nature, Jeddah’s fountain, said to be the largest in the world, appears above all as hypocrisy – the display of a large jet of water does not prevent the desert from growing all around it, nor women from existing. Although surrounded by night, cloistered in the protective cabin of a car, their faces anonymized by spots of light, the three protagonists manage to make their voices ring out loud and clear: their insolent, humorous exchanges testify to an unquenchable thirst for freedom, which the film magnifies and extends to the point of unreality. Paul Heintz imagines what the fountain’s entrails might look like, using synthetic images interspersed with documentary footage: as it turns out, the foundations of the proud phallic symbol look like ruins.

Raw Reverie, 2022. Digital photograph, cyanotype print on fabriano 300 gr, 7x (48 x 68) cm and 150 x 105 cm

Elegías a un paisaje, 2023. Five-body vase whistle with four aerophonic systems and acoustic chambers made in Argentina , 40 x 30 x 40 cm