Journées Bleues – Sweet water and salt water

On 5 and 6 December 2024 the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici hosts Journées Bleues – Sweet water and salt water, two events dedicated to the theme of water that combine visual art, literature, history, archeology and science in a multidisciplinary dialogue . The initiative is part of the ongoing exhibition “The Song of the Sirens” (scheduled until January 13th) offering a cultural and poetic study that explores water as a natural, historical and symbolic element.

Thursday 5 December is dedicated to fresh water and offers an itinerary through the garden and fountains of the Villa, with the exceptional activation of the historical sources. The journey to discover the Acqua Virgo, an ancient Roman aqueduct that crosses the Villa, will be accompanied by the analyzes of historians and archaeologists such as Hervé Brunon and Silvia Ginzburg, to tell the importance of water in the landscape and in the territories. The artist Yasmine El-Amri will propose a performative conference on watersheds and the social and geographical fractures they reveal. In the afternoon, Rose-Lynn Fisher and Morgane Ortin will lead an emotional journey between science and poetry, reflecting on the meaning of human tears through microscopic images and collective performances. The day will end with a reading by Nina Leger taken from her novel Mémoires sauvées de l’eau, where the course of a Californian river becomes a metaphor for the destruction and rebirth of civilizations.

On Friday 6 December the focus will shift to salt water with a guided tour of the “Song of the Mermaids” exhibition, focusing on the underwater art of Yiannis Maniatakos, whose works embody the interaction between painting and the marine environment. The interventions by Juliette Bessette and Maria Papadimitriou will delve into the techniques and artistic legacy of Maniatakos, while the afternoon will be dedicated to oceanic imagery with contributions from Pauline André-Dominguez, Lara Tabet and Laure Limongi. Through readings and reflections, the sea will be explored as a space of poetry, memory and ecological crisis. The day will culminate with the bilingual reading of the work Non-noyées by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, a feminist homage to marine mammals and their models of social and environmental resistance, concluding with the evening concert of Mai Mai Mai, which blends Mediterranean traditions, folklore and sound experimentation.