LOAN – “Méditerranée, Odyssées contemporaines” – Group exhibition – Fondation Villa Datris
The RAJA Collection is delighted to loan the artwork Souvenir by artist Thomas Lerooy to the Fondation Villa Datris for the exhibition “Méditerranée, Odyssées contemporaines” on view from May 15 to November 1, 2026.
“An inland sea, a space of passage and transmission, the Mediterranean is a vehicle of memory shaped by voyage, exchange, and composite culture. It is also marked by rupture, exile, and profound wounds. For centuries, people have looked to the Mediterranean for refuge, for a future, for dignity—often through crossings risking heartbreak and loss. In 2026, the Fondation Villa Datris brings together 70 artists who engage the Mediterranean as a shared, living territory. These artworks create dialogues among migration histories, roots, traditions, and cultures, while also confronting contemporary realities: climate change, migration policies, borders, and violence. Balancing activism and poetry, the artists advocate for welcome, hospitality, and recognition of the Other. The exhibition presents stories of hope and resilience, conveyed by those who continue to believe in an open, compassionate, and deeply human Mediterranean.”
(exhibition synopsis)
“Fragments of an earlier artwork are piled into a cardboard box, cast in bronze, and bound with an orange rope: Lerooy transmutes packaging and waste into relic. Discarded materials become permanent, refuse becomes vestige. The title plays on the two meanings of the word “souvenir” as a memory and a trinket brought back from a journey. Souvenir thus poses, with ironic melancholy, an essentially Mediterranean question: how can one preserve the trace of what has been broken?” (label of the work in the exhibition)
Curation: Danièle Marcovici and Stéphane Baumet
📷: Exhibition views « Méditerranée, Odyssées contemporaines » at Fondation Villa Datris, 2026 – Photo © Bertrand Michau, ADAGP, Paris – 2026
Thomas Lerooy, Souvenir, 2012, bronze, ed. 3/5 © Adagp, Paris, 2026
