As each artist has followed a distinct training and career path and works in his or her own individual visual language, it is difficult to suggest a theme for all of the works presented here and group them together under an overarching banner, except for the guiding thread of water. But whilst water is a universal and timeless subject, it is also immensely broad, and the approaches taken by each artist range from the question of liquid/solid to issues of borders or drought.
A better approach would be to view the works as a snapshot of the modern world and humanity’s constant place within it. Through her figures of swimmers with their uniform appearance, Muriel Bordier takes a light-hearted look at her contemporaries and ourselves, whilst Mathieu Bonardet uses flows and chasms to investigate spaces, and implicitly, human relationships. Asieh Dehghani expresses concern about water scarcity in Iran, which she relates to notions of community and identity, whereas Laurent Mareschal creates eddies of words with an interactive poem and speaks to us about inner fragility. In a more experimental vein, Johan Parent plays with the mechanics of objects, whilst Paul Souviron tries to capture the form of water.
So we can think of this exhibition as a stroll through different worlds, a discovery of the prize-winning artworks and complementary pieces: a series of little modules that can be read individually but also interconnected according to our perspectives and sensibilities.
