The first idea was to recreate an underwater world where luminous figures came in and out of the water, taking passersby by surprise. A poetic way to pay tribute to old legends about mysterious lake dwellers but also to not so idyllic movie scenes of bodies that sank in tragic circumstances as they struggled to come out of the water.
That was the original idea and it was to be called Baignade interdite. However, the lake’s characteristics, located over a bed of calcareous rocks, gave the water a milky color that didn’t allow us to see what happened underwater in spite of the light enveloping the bodies. So we had to change the display on the go to adapt it to its real context.
Hence we had to improvise which is something quite common in our work method. So, helping ourselves with some of the already purchased material, especially the latex gloves, we thought the idea over and turned it into a new display where the beings of light would be trying to come afloat or would be sinking (depending on one’s life experience)… We also re-named it as “Coming Afloat?”.