Running waters

Running waters
A residency crossed by The Bièvre river between Pauline Perplexe and Bétonsalon

The Bièvre River flows into the Seine in Paris, at the Austerlitz train station, after a 35 km journey through the departments of Yvelines, Essonne, Hauts-de-Seine, Val-de-Marne and Paris, where it used to flow through the 13th and 5th arrondissements. Its sources are in La Minière ponds, near Guyancourt. Once open to the air, it has suffered the fate of many small urban rivers: polluted, channelled and dispersed. It has been completely covered in Paris since 1912 and in the suburbs from Antony to Gentilly since the 1950s, with the exception of short sections recently brought to light. In Arcueil, The Bièvre flows under Pauline Perplexe, a former family house run by artists and converted into an independent place of artistic production and exhibition, and continues underground, indiscernible, near Bétonsalon, in the 13th arrondissement.

The covered riverbed of the Bièvre under the garden of Pauline Perplexe in Arcueil, March 2022 © Pauline Perplexe.

Taking as a pretext and source of inspiration the path of this underground water that links Pauline Perplexe to Bétonsalon, we will take advantage of this invisible link to correspond, send messages in bottles, pursue artistic research and share it. Through monthly meetings combining visits, walks, workshops, surveys of texts and paths, this project will be an opportunity to share our practices and know-hows. Each session will include an invitation to a researcher, artist or activist, who will bring another approach to the issues addressed.

Running waters receives the support of the Ministry of Culture - DRAC Ile-de-France within the framework of the deployment of SODAVI-F, Schéma d’Orientation pour les Arts Visuels en Ile-de-France.