This year, with our new exhibition Mediterranean, Contemporary Odysseys, I invite you to immerse yourself in the soul of this mythical sea, in the company of 74 artists from 20 countries.

A crossroads of civilizations, the Mediterranean has always been a space where past and present, tradition and modernity coexist. Today, more than ever, it embodies the challenges of our time: climate change, food insecurity, environmental struggles, as well as profound social transformations.

In this exhibition, the artists engage in dialogue with history and civilizations, inviting us to explore the richness of Mediterranean traditions, the reality of our shared roots, and the diversity of our cultures.

They pay tribute to the Mediterranean as a space of exchange, movement, and passage; they evoke the precariousness and vulnerability of climate migration and the pain of exile, while questioning the mechanisms of exclusion and collective forgetting.

Whether committed, poetic, or infused with humor, their works also explore the transmission of knowledge, languages, songs, objects, everyday gestures, and ancestral practices.

Finally, this artistic journey invites us to consider the Mediterranean as a shared territory and a shared memory, where our cultures intersect and enrich one another in a constantly evolving world.

Danièle Marcovici, Founder and President of the Villa Datris Foundation