Prussian blue curtains, studded with white dots, hang between the columns, partially veiling the alcove at the back. In the centre of the basin, a copper goblet sits on a modest country tripod. A chain, passing through the slit between the curtains, links the receptacle to the backside, from which the water can be heard running.

This scene is a reference to the beliefs of the Orphic mystical current (6th century BC-4th century AD), and in particular to what awaits the soul after the death of the body: it is thirsty, but must not drink from the fountain of Oblivion (Lethe) where the other souls go. The initiate knows that he or she must drink from the Lake of Memory (Mnemosyne) in order to stop the cycle of reincarnation. To do this, they must say the following as their viaticum: ‘I am the son of the Earth and the starry sky; I'm dying of thirst and fainting; give me water to drink from the lake of Mnemosyne’.

The starry curtain is actually a large photograph, or rather a photogram: the fabric has been coated with a sensitive cyanotype solution, then exposed to the sun so that it turns blue. Pieces of meteorite, finely crushed by the artist and scattered randomly across the surface, became the white dots that represent the stars.
The stool is a milking tripod, small enough to be at the height of the cows' and goats' udders. This direct link to milk, in parallel with the Milky Way on the curtain, echoes the sibylline phrase of the Orphics: ‘Like a baby goat I ran towards the milk’.
Cyanotype on fabric, brass, copper, wood, magnets
Curtain 325 x 92 cm