Following four years of residency along the Rhône and Loire rivers, Chloé Colin and Loïc Xavier present the restitution phase of their work. Each has developed a singular approach to the river, through artistic devices combining photography, printmaking and video.
In her cycle DIVAGATION(S), Chloé Colin explores the relationships between water, memory and the transformations of living matter, drawing on the landscapes of the Upper Rhône between Lyon and Geneva, and its tributaries. Her works weave together reinvented mythological figures, hybrid bodies and altered landscapes in a poetic and sensory approach to aquatic environments. Through photography, printmaking, film and material experimentation, she interrogates the circulation of water, the traces it leaves and the forms of coexistence between human, animal and environment.
Loïc Xavier, with S’ILS POUVAIENT PARLER, questions the landscape and our intimate relationship to it, observing how territory and its forms shape our sensory experiences.
Alongside their individual research, Chloé Colin and Loïc Xavier are developing DÉ/S/RIVES, a participatory project conducted with residents living along the Rhône and Loire, in dialogue with environmental mediators and fluvial experts. Conceived as a collective traversal of the landscape, the project proposes to “give a photographic voice” to the inhabitants, passers-by and observers of the rivers and their tributaries. The images, narratives and fragments collected gradually compose a sensory memory of the river territories, between uses, perceptions and the transformations of living matter.
Born in 1981 in Reims, Chloé Colin lives and works in Chambéry. A graduate of Sciences Po Paris, the Centre Régional de Formation des Avocats de Versailles and the Bloo School of Photography and Contemporary Image in Lyon, she first practised as a lawyer before devoting herself to artistic creation. In 2025, the certification as an author-photographer awarded by the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles recognised her practice as a visual artist. — https://chloecolin.fr
Born in 1984, Loïc Xavier lives and works in Lyon. Following a reorientation towards photography at BLOO – School of Photography and Contemporary Image in Lyon in 2012, Loïc Xavier joined the Centre de Photographie Contemporaine et Documentaire Le Bleu du Ciel as exhibitions coordinator and chief production manager. This experience marked a decisive stage in the development of his critical eye, nourished by documentary practices in contemporary image-making. From 2014 to 2017, he continued his career at Galerie Le Réverbère, a gallery dedicated to photography, where he deepened his reflection on the aesthetic and theoretical issues of the photographic medium.
DÉ/S/RIVES : Chloé Colin & Loïc Xavier
17 June – 1 July 2026
Allée de Ceinture, Parc de la Tête d’Or
69006 Lyon 6ᵉme
https://www.visiterlyon.com/sortir/l-agenda/expositions/exposition-de-s-rives
