How can we rethink the banks of the Seine - their shapes, their uses - as the threshold to the Other World?
With The threshold to the Other World, Isabelle Daëron continues her research into water and Celtic mythology.
In Ivry-sur-Seine, on the edge of the city, the river has been kept at a distance, as if to protect its inhabitants from flooding or to promote river logistics and trade since the 19th century. Over 2,000 years ago, its banks were the site of a meeting with its tutelary figure: the goddess Sequana. In Celtic mythology, they were synonymous with gateways to the Other World, the world of omniscience.
Through an exploration of the mythological dimension of the Seine and contemporary uses of the riverbanks in Ivry, Isabelle Daëron has developed a research project on the notion of threshold, embodied in drawings, installations, and objects.
The exhibition, organised in two rooms, invites visitors on a journey to the banks of the Seine and to make a revolution by observing from the water, to access the Other World.
The first room offers a panoramic view of the banks at Ivry and invites visitors to activate the Sequana sluice.
The second room invites visitors to enter the Sequana riverbank. In this space, objects and devices embody the notion of the threshold. Each has the specificity of reconciling use and symbolic value: railings, fountains, flood ladders, organs and wildlife ladders.
Sequana sluice invites you to experience a passage to the Other World. In Celtic mythology, the Other World is the world of divinities and omniscience. Only certain creatures have access to it, those capable of crossing two environments, like the duck, between the aquatic and aerial environments, or the salmon, between fresh and salt water. On either side, drawings evoke what the river has known for millennia. The spatial device is activated by an opening handwheel.
The fountain of knowledge installation gives form to one of the sites of Celtic mythology: the Fountain of Knowledge. This is a freshwater fountain at the bottom of the water, bordered by oak and hazelnut trees whose fruit - hazelnuts, acorns - feeds salmon, another creature with access to the other world.
The flood scale is a reminder of our ambivalent relationship with the river. It shows the main flood dates and announces the possibility of an impending flood.
How can we imagine hospitable riverbanks for non-humans? This Wildlife ladder is designed to make it easier for animals to climb up the banks of the Seine.
How can we imagine hospitable riverbanks for non-humans? This Wildlife ladder is designed to make it easier for animals to climb up the banks of the Seine.
2025.09.27 -> 2025.12.13
Exhibition at Galerie Fernand Léger/Ville d'Ivry-sur-Seine, 93 avenue Georges Gosnat, 94200 Ivry-sur Seine
Photo credits: Galerie Fernand Léger
Exhibition at Galerie Fernand Léger/Ville d'Ivry-sur-Seine, 93 avenue Georges Gosnat, 94200 Ivry-sur Seine
Photo credits: Galerie Fernand Léger