The exhibition À bout de mer [The Edge of the Sea] is the result of a research project initiated in 2019 by Sylvie Ungauer, artist and teacher at EESAB, the European Academy of Art in Brittany, and Camille de Singly, art and design historian. Inhabiting the sea, undressing the coast, and vice versa, these were the words guiding the early intuitions of this project aimed at reflecting on the future of Man on the coast, from an approach linking scientific knowledge, artistic forms and critical design.

Its objective was to study, imagine and think about the way Man will live on this piece of the sea in the future. With a deliberately multidisciplinary approach, the research team brought together designers, artists, film-makers and theoreticians, as well as a group of Masters students from the Brest campus of EESAB.

Several study and discovery days focussing on the coastline enabled contributors to become familiar with the maritime environment and gain awareness of the research currently being undertaken by scientists from IUEM (European Institute for Marine Studies) at the university campus of Plouzané. A week-long workshop with the artist Julie Chaffort was organised in March 2020 in partnership with Océanopolis, which hosted a visit, including behind the scenes, for a group of students from the Brest campus of EESAB.

The exhibition À bout de mer is the account of a year of research and exchange between the twelve members of the project team, which has led to the creation of works in a multiplicity of forms: films, objects, sound pieces, writing. We meet mermaids making their siren song, a beach towel designed for seaside flirting, artists trying to communicate with dolphins, a dancer skimming over the frozen sea, and an abundance of algae. Reality often co-exists with fiction, with the boundaries between the two becoming particularly blurred when the marine imagination comes into play.

Alongside this exhibition, a publication on the whole À bout de mer project is due to be published in October 2020. This work will present the various different stages of the research and bring together the documentation on the works and objects produced.