Libations

In ancient Greece, pateras were objects used to make libations, that is, daily rituals in which a little water or wine was poured on the ground or on an altar in memory of those who are no longer here.

During a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris to study the Seine, I designed three ceramic pateras decorated with symbols of the fauna, flora and mythology of the French river. At the same time, I discovered La Bièvre, a tributary of the Seine whose majority is buried, because years ago it had been so polluted that having it open was dangerous. The first time we carried out the “Libations” was on October 24, 2022, with Isabella Beneduci, Angèle Keserwany and Marleine Chedraoui. We went to get water from La Bièvre in a park in Antony, just before this river goes underground. We filled the pateras and walked through the streets of La Bièvre until we reached Paris, where it empties into the Seine, while the water from the pateras was being poured. The hike we did was this.

The second time (10/09/23), the pateras were made taking the relief of the Ter river bed on one of the days of drought. They were activated in Navarra, on the Ultzama River, as it passed through the Batán de Villava. They were filled with these waters that we transported to the place where the Ultzama disappears into the Arga, both mighty rivers. On this occasion, the libations were made in honor of the Ter river, which is increasingly disappearing.

The third time (30/08/24), the pateras were decorated with illustrations of the route of the Ter from Colomers to the Mediterranean from the first millennium BC to the present. In total we used six pateras designed with the information extracted from the article “Canvis en la paleomorfologia i dinàmica fluvial del riu Ter des de l’últim màxim glacial” (2010), by Jordi Montaner, Ramon Julià, M. Àngels Marquès, Joan Solà, Pere Pons and Juanma López, published in volume 29 of the magazine Estudis del Baix Empordà. In this case, we collected water before the Colomers dam and made the libations between the confluence of the Nietes stream and the Riu Vell to the mouth of the Mediterranean at the Riuet beach, in Sant Martí d’Empúries. Thus, we paid tribute to an old arm of the Ter, which has been turned into a few irrigation canals due to the anthropic activity of the last centuries.

Acción “Libaciones” – Mapamundistas 2023 / El Umbral from Anna Dot on Vimeo.