Down to a sunless sea
April, 2019
Arondit, Paris

A proposal by Ekaterina Shcherbakova, Julia Borderie & Éloïse Le Gallo

With the artists: Théodora Barat, Julia Borderie & Éloïse Le Gallo, Thomas Geiger, Philémon Hervet & Victor Prokhorov, Anna Holveck, Géraldine Longueville, Dimitri Mallet, Pieter van der Schaaf

Curator: Ekaterina Shcherbakova

The exhibition Down to a sunless sea starts evolving from the hypothesis that a river flows under the building where the Arondit art space is situated. The two floors of the space form a metaphorical entrance into the inaccessible underground where the stream curves, being a main subject of the show.  The project takes as its very starting point a meeting between the artists Julia Borderie and Eloise Le Gallo, and a curator, Ekaterina Shcherbakova. Since 2017, they have been collaborating on a long-term research and art project, Points-Bascule, which considers the multifaceted matter of water as an element establishing the relationships between people and their environment. The exhibition is the result of numerous exchanges between the participating artists and curator, along with a collaboration with the energy healer Sophie Rusniok, the archeologist Miguel Biard, and the stone mason Xavier Questaiux.

Down to a sunless sea is conceptualized as a site-specific, collectively constructed dispositif for individual daydreaming. A proposal to move one’s consciousness to the sensation and experience of the ‘Other’, not necessarily graspable and comprehensible intellectually, it evokes the phenomenon of proprioception or a « sixth sense » that is related to a sensation of position, movement, and effort of an animal’s body in a given situation and context. The hypnogogic experience of the exhibition is built on physical and conceptual operations of appropriation, defragmentation, infiltration, sedimentation, and accumulation, as defined by the artistic proposals.

With a dedication to all the waters of the world, Down to a sunless sea encourages us to face the world as we find it, while guiding us though different relationships and scenarios emergent of the subject of liquid. Acting as a narrative binder, water enables us to navigate through the system of stories, matters, and scales.

Photo credits: Salim Santa Lucia

Poem for the exhibition

think of them

think of them

think about

All the waters of the world

Which will

wash you

drown

dissolve you

But if you put yourself in this place

you can find yourself

In the eye of the storm

Shivering from head to toe

Dina, Gafilo or Diwa

We protect you from them

With our words, our languages

It is an eco-paleo-psycho-electro-cosmo-logical discourse

We are here to reverse the flow of rivers, open dams

Whistle Frank Ocean in your ear

We drill

We dig

We dig

All night long

What we want is a rain that falls from the earth to the sky

What we want is to let the river of rivers make its way

What we want is to create images and scenes of fog

What we want is to survive

In a mixture of slush and urine

We'll lock you in the bathroom

of a milky way

Or in your head

As usual, your thoughts begin to wander

You should see what you see and nothing else

You will better understand the underground rivers

And non-verbal thoughts

From the depths to the spit

From the tide to the large jacuzzi

From Transparency of Thought to Confusion

And if you don't wanna be a metaphor

You should take a sip

And swallow

And become the river yourself

And take an elevator or a plane

Or a truck

By digging without stopping

Join other rivers

Exchange liquids

Ekaterina Shcherbakova