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The springs of the imagination always end up forming a lake
29 March, 14h00
“The springs of the imagination always end up forming a lake”.
an exhibition, performances and stories to illuminate the mysterious
March 29, 2026 from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm as part of the Festival Histoire et Cité
At the crossroads of the arts, sciences and cultural heritage, this initiative proposes to turn the territory from a mere setting into a space for shared narratives, conveying meaning, belonging and relationships. In this way, the place becomes alive, not through its materiality alone, but through the stories that run through it and the links it generates, enabling everyone to become part of it, to recognize themselves in it and to experience it. To live the territory is also to tell its story.
A proposal fromIIRRM
Since its creation, theInstitut International de Recherche sur la Radio et la Magie (IIRRM) has explored the relationship between magic, art and science, with the ambition of questioning dominant cultural narratives and renewing the ecology of the senses. The project Les sources de l’imaginaire finissent toujours par former un lac (The springs of the imaginary always end up forming a lake) is part of this line: beyond the transmission of a rich intangible heritage, it questions contemporary societal and ecological issues by reaffirming the role of the marvellous in our collective imaginations.
Program of talks and performances, from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm:
Flash training – Guardians of Lake Geneva stories
Maryne Lanaro
Continuous 30′ storytelling on the pier
Supported by the E.S.I.M. association, this flash course is an immersion in the ecology of storytelling. At the crossroads of neuroscience, mythology and life sciences, it explores a simple yet powerful idea: when stories stop circulating, places become impoverished. Through a founding myth of Lake Geneva, collective practices and ritual gestures, participants become guardians of stories – responsible for their transmission, transformation and symbolic power. An intergenerational experience, joyful and engaging, to relearn how to listen to places and tell stories in a different way.
Introduction to the notion of wave epidermis by Jeska Kaola
Paul Courlet
Perfomance, storytelling, music 40′ around 4:00 pm
In this mini-conference, Paul Courlet immerses us in the work of Jeska Kaola, an avant-garde intuitive researcher who evoked the notions of brain waves, synchronization and trance in her 1808 essay Épidermes ondulatoires (Kaola, Jeska, Epidermes ondulatoires Édition Solaris, 1808). Disappeared from the radar and reviled by the scientific community, she was in her time a precursor of therapeutic hypnosis and anticipated the discoveries about brain function made later through brain imaging. She was also close to the famous international trader Jaklos Bariolez Igwan (1755-1816), renowned for his audacity and divinatory powers.
The lake lamp
Diederik Petters
Performance, installation, narrative 25′ continuous in the Yurt
What do luminous objects have to say when we finally give them a voice? In this sound installation, it’s light that plays the leading role: a simple electric bulb on a stand. It flickers. But even more astonishing: it speaks. Could it be that this lamp has emerged from the abyssal depths, from the compact blackness at the bottom of Lake Geneva? A ghostly lamp that seems to carry sunken stories – tales of wrecked ships, missing scenes, lives or voices that have sunk into the lake – but also, the tale of its own invention.
A MOBILE EXHIBITION WITH
MATHILDE TINTURIER, HENRY DELÉTRA HANNA, STEPHANIE PFISTER
AND A LISTENING LOUNGE WITH
ERIC DESJEUX, JEAN-BAPTISTE MOLINA, MARYNE LANARO, EVA ZORNIO, PAUL COURLET, DIEDERIK PETEERS
