CONTRE-MARÉE

CONTRE-MARÉE is a joint artistic creation by Aurélien Lafargue and Arthur Thoyer Rozat, at the meeting point of sculpture, light and moving image.

The project takes the form of a monumental marine bestiary: manta rays, octopuses, whales and other ocean creatures appear in space as openwork metal sculptures, drawn as presences at once physical, fragile and spectral.

By day the works exist through their material, their volume and their transparency. The metal lets the gaze, the air and the natural light circulate. The sculptures seem suspended between appearance and disappearance, like fragments of a living world glimpsed but never wholly grasped.

After nightfall, a second existence begins.

Light and video projection travel across the volumes, follow the lines of the metal, reveal movements, breaths and transformations. The image is not conceived as a covering laid over the sculpture, but as an additional material: it circulates inside the body of the animal, passes through it, transforms it and gives it a duration.

The sculptures then become luminous organisms.

Bioluminescence, marine currents, plankton movements, ocean cartographies, biological textures and natural phenomena feed an abstract, organic visual writing. Sound can extend this sensation of depth and movement, to the point of turning the exhibition space into an imagined seascape.

CONTRE-MARÉE also carries an ecological dimension.

The project speaks of marine life without seeking to produce a demonstrative or didactic discourse. The fragility of the oceans, the collapse of certain species, the transformation of ecosystems and the impact of human activity appear as a watermark within the experience.

The animals are not depicted as decorative icons. Their presence becomes almost a form of resistance.

The title CONTRE-MARÉE evokes that idea: going against the current, bringing the living to the surface where it tends to disappear, making visible what usually lies beneath, and recalling the power of a world that exceeds us.

The collaboration rests on two complementary kinds of writing.

Arthur Thoyer Rozat works on the body, the material, the structure and the sculptural presence.

Aurélien Lafargue works on light, image, movement, sound and the temporal transformation of the work.

The meeting of these two practices gives rise to a hybrid form: neither augmented sculpture nor plain video mapping, but a work whose identity rests precisely on the constant dialogue between material and light.

CONTRE-MARÉE is, finally, conceived as an evolving project.

The bestiary can grow step by step, take in new species and adapt to different territories. Each installation can echo its environment: local species, maritime history, port heritage, coastal landscapes, island narratives or particular ecological concerns.

The work can therefore take several forms: event installation, seasonal exhibition, artistic trail or permanent commission.

Each version nonetheless keeps the same founding principle: to bring the monumental, luminous presence of the marine world into our human landscapes.

A sculpture arrives with its lines, its hollows, its density. Projecting anything onto it first requires looking at it for a long time, and accepting that the light will not land on a blank page.

Two marine forms to begin with: an octopus, all folds and ramifications, and a manta ray, made of wide curves and glide. Two presences that do not call for the same image.

The image cannot ignore the form. It runs along an edge, sinks into a hollow, fades where the volume turns away. Photogrammetry gives a faithful digital copy, but it only prepares the ground.

Then comes the decisive part: deciding what must appear, what must stay dark, what may seem to circulate beneath the skin of the object. The projection does not replace the sculpture; it adds a duration to it.