Aqua mater: Serenity and Reflection

宁静和反思的时刻

The parvis de La Défense will host the artistic installation AQUA MATER, a unique 1000m2 natural bamboo structure exhibiting a unique collection of photographs by the Franco-Brazilian artist Sebastião Salgado on the theme of water, for 6 months.

AQUA MATER combines photography, architecture and music. They invite visitors to share a moment of serenity and reflection on some of the fundamental values of our time and our societies, in particular the respect for life.

Strong, poetic and instantaneous images carry a universal message: that of the beauty and fragility of water, so integrated into our lives that it almost becomes invisible. In order to make it visible again, the AQUA MATER exhibition has been designed to travel from city to city.

A MOMENT OF SERENITY AND REFLECTION

An invitation to travel but also to meditate, AQUA MATER offers a sensory and spiritual experience subdued lighting and musical ambience by composer François-Bernard Mâche, and tropical mist immerse visitors in an atmosphere of serenity.

A privileged setting to invite them to question and raise their awareness of the environmental issues of today and tomorrow.

Colombian architect Simón Vélez creates complex structures out of bamboo. He practices an architecture that gets its roots in indigenous materials, taken from nature and little transformed. This unique natural architecture is a tribute to this ancestral concept where the whole community lives in perfect balance with its environment.

Bamboo becomes a real plant steel allowing structures to be built that are just as large, if not larger, than what can be done conventionally with wood or steel.

The choice of the La Défense square is not insignificant, offering an original architectural confrontation between natural architecture and steel construction. A striking contrast that profoundly questions our relationship to the Earth and to Life.

AN ODE TO THE FRAGILITY OF WATER

Economic development and growing world population means that agriculture and industry needs more and more water hence, water-intensive energy production is increasing to meet this demand. Climate change is also making water resources more unstable and contributing to pollution.

Water is central in Sebastião Salgado’s work. In the course of his exhaustive search for the first peoples and landscapes, but also through his environmental commitment in his native Brazil, he has been in contact with all its expressions for thirty years, and has experienced all its fragilities.

Sebastião Salgado:

Mythical stories and the poetic imagination often associate water with the cycle of human life. Water is the most precious liquid on Earth, indispensable to our existence.
The source of this exhibition is a reflection on the state of our planet. Global warming has become a threat to humanity and nature.
Trying to represent in images the need, beauty, strength and mysteries of water is a difficult task, at the risk of falling easily into the common place. In this exhibition, water appears in all its forms, its purity and intensity, its abundance and scarcity, captured in its solitude or in various interactions with man, fauna and flora, in a photographic sample of its poetry and indispensability.

在6个月的时间里，巴黎拉德芳斯广场将举办 AQUA MATER 艺术展，这是一个独特的1000平方米的天然竹结构，展出法国-巴西艺术家塞巴斯蒂安-萨尔加多以水为主题的独特摄影作品。

AQUA MATER结合了摄影、建筑和音乐，并邀请参观者分享一个宁静的时刻，反思我们时代和社会的一些基本价值，特别是对生命的尊重。作为对水的脆弱性的真正颂歌，AQUA MATER 艺术展为塞巴斯蒂昂-萨尔加多的摄影作品提供了一个独特的自然环境，提醒我们大自然的平衡仍然是多么微妙。

强烈的、诗意的、瞬间的图像承载着一个普遍的信息：水是一个重要元素的美丽和脆弱，它是如此融入我们的生活，以至于几乎变得不可见。

AQUAMATER是旅行的邀请，也是冥想的邀请，它提供了一种感官和精神体验。低调的灯光、作曲家弗朗索瓦-贝尔纳-马什的音乐和声音氛围以及热带雾气使游客沉浸在宁静的氛围中，邀请他们质疑并提高他们对环境问题的认识。

竹子-真正的植物钢

哥伦比亚建筑师西蒙.贝莱斯用竹子创造了复杂的结构。他的建筑是以竹子材料为根基，从自然界中提取并稍加改造。竹子成为真正的植物钢，允许建造的结构与传统的木材或钢材一样坚固，甚至更坚固。选择巴黎拉德芳斯广场并非没有意义，它为自然建筑和钢结构之间提供了一种原始的建筑对抗，一个惊人的对比，深刻地质疑我们与地球和生命的关系。

水的脆弱

经济发展和世界人口增长意味着农业和工业需要越来越多的水，而为了满足这一需求，水密集型能源生产也在增加。气候变化也使水资源更加不稳定，并导致污染。

水是塞巴斯蒂安.萨尔加多作品的核心。在他对景观的详尽探索过程中，三十年来他一直在接触水的所有表现形式，并经历了它的所有脆弱性。

塞巴斯蒂安.萨尔加多：

神话故事和诗意的想象力常常将水与人类的生命循环联系起来。水是地球上最珍贵的液体，对我们的生存来说是不可或缺的。
这个展览的源头是对我们星球状况的思考。全球变暖已经成为对人类和自然的威胁，试图在图像中表现水的需求、美感、力量和神秘是一项艰巨的任务，有可能会轻易落入俗套。
在这个展览中，水以各种形式出现，它的纯度和强度，它的丰富性和稀缺性，在它的孤独或与人类、动物和植物的各种互动中被捕获，在一个摄影样本中展示它的诗意和不可缺少性。

Airs de Paris in Kiosk

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Numbers 07 2023