On the occasion of the 14th edition of the Talents Contemporains competition, the exhibition Traversées brings together the seven winning artists who make water the backdrop for journeys, resistance, and memory.
The journey opens with Enrique Ramírez‘s sound sculpture Elegías a un paisaje, which reactivates Pre-Columbian knowledge to give a voice to water and air. The medium then takes on a mineral breath in Ladislas Combeuil’s work, whose 45 canvases in Mes petites fenêtres allow the paint itself to create silent horizons. The immersion continues with Le plus vieux film du monde by Éléonore Geissler, a hybrid installation that transforms an aquarium and its prehistoric coelacanth into a true optical theater. The visitor’s gaze then shifts to the waters of the Caspian Sea with Mehrali’s Raw Reverie, which captures the force of waves in cyanotype to revive childhood memories. Next, the vibrant canvas Géeju Neefare – Plastic Sea by Alioune Diagne brings a geopolitical dimension to the exhibition, denouncing plastic pollution and the forced exile of Senegalese fishing communities. Julie Bourges follows with Les eaux-fortes, a visual tale of seven photographs in which the daily life of a female fisher becomes a quest for emancipation against the sea. Finally, Paul Heintz closes the exhibition with Nafura, a nocturnal urban journey through Saudi Arabia, where three women drive through Jeddah to claim a brief moment of freedom in the face of social norms.