In Rome Sing the Sirens
In Rome, a year after the exhibition Stories of Stone in 2023, the Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis is continuing its artistic exploration of the elements with a new exhibition, Siren song. Water as told by artists, in which some thirty contemporary artists were invited to ‘tell the story of water’. This is the same polymorphous theme that AA explored in its autumn 2024 issue, Water. Common Good.
Curated by Caroline Courrioux, Head of Exhibitions, and Sam Stourdzé, Director of the Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis, where he is a former resident, the exhibition is an invitation to explore the element of water in all its complexity: an infinite resource for poetic and artistic interpretation, it is also, inevitably, a major social and political issue. In its anthropomorphic version, water has become a ‘mermaid’, allowing the artists (current and former residents, but also guests) to invoke a ‘guide’ that, despite its ambivalence, is unmistakable.
‘Mermaids are part of our feminist history, and losing sight of this belonging leads us to consider them without correlating them to gender, species, race, humanity, (…) Mermaids force us to pay attention to the question of becoming, to that of life in threads of water that make the world permeable and connected, outside any fantasy of total purification. This should serve not as a model, but as a political, artistic, academic and, above all, ethical direction: becoming-sirens are intimately linked to our futures and to the reinvention of the subject in the age of our tragic ecologies,’ writes Myriam Bahaffou, a researcher in feminist philosophy, in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition.
« Diving into this liquid world opens up a host of contradictions, when tales of water’s origins intermingle with those that conjure up future times in which it threatens us with flooding and drought, and sea levels rise while rivers run dry. »
‘Water is in crisis, as the artists remind us, steering a course from the polluted waters of cities to the straits of natural spaces, sounding the death knell, tacitly or otherwise, for its reckless use and starting a critical conversation on our collective responsibility to preserve it. Reclaiming ground, flowing, and recapturing the magical properties of water in order to think about our world: such is the thread that Siren songs. Water as told by artists invites us to follow.’
Siren songs. Water as told by artists Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis Viale della Trinità dei Monti, 1. Rome Untile 13 January 2025 Along with the exhibition, a catalogue has been published by Empire in October 2024. Texts by Myriam Bahaffou, Alix Boillot, Caroline Courrioux, Julien d'Huy, Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, Sarah Rey, Himali Singh Soin, Sam Stourdzé, Ala Tannir, Justinien Tribillon, Seneca, Pliny the Elder. Bilingual edition (French/Italian), 352 pages
