Based on a statuette representing Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea who is the origin of marine animals, Sylvain Pattieu revisits the trajectory of a number of Inuit people, the constraints imposed upon them, the domination suffered over centuries, the way objects they produced have circulated and been appropriated in the West, but also how a new generation of artists has emerged, managing to gain recognition worldwide. In parallel, following the mermaid motif, he imagines a conflict between rival groups in a suburb, the privileged and the disadvantaged, all under the surveillance of a drone symbolizing an omniscient power of control. The resistors are primarily women resistors, notably a mysterious young girl particularly at ease in water, thanks to whom they will find their salvation. Between these two alternating narratives, Sylvain Pattieu inserts memories of his relationship with his mother, who had lost the use of her legs at the end of her life due to an infection, comparing her in a way to a mermaid, limited in her mobility but having developed many other sensitivities. It thus addresses the issue of doing justice to erased trajectories, at different levels.
The three narratives are blended with great fluidity, mythology running throughout, questioning our relationship to history, culture, and transmission, with extremely vivid, precise, and inventive language, much empathy but also a great deal of humor, Sylvain Pattieu perfectly handling irony and at times adopting a very contemporary orality to give life to a mythology of the present.
