This exhibition examines the swimming pool as a powerful symbol in contemporary art, presenting it as a space where pleasure, control, memory, politics, and uncertainty converge. Rooted in Le Locle’s relationship with water—marked by the disappearance of its historic lake and a proposal to replace the museum with a public swimming pool—the project connects local history with broader environmental concerns.
Inspired by Joan Didion’s observation that pools symbolize control over the uncontrollable, the exhibition explores how artists reframe and complicate this metaphor through queer, political, and historical perspectives. More than a recreational site, the swimming pool reflects both personal and collective aspirations while revealing tensions between order and disorder, luxury and decay, intimacy and isolation.
Bringing together painting, film, photography, sculpture, performance, and a waterproof artist’s book, the exhibition invites visitors to reconsider the swimming pool as a lens through which to explore the cultural, political, and environmental tensions of contemporary life.
