Totano

A promise binds the one who makes it to the unknown. By linking the present to an uncertain future, it becomes a form of foundation. To promise is to take responsibility for what does not yet exist.

The exhibition Totano, presented at the Frac des Pays de la Loire, originates in a gesture—a handshake. A pact without contract, committing all that the future holds in terms of uncertainty and trust.

It was during a crossing of the Mediterranean that an encounter with a Sicilian fisherman led to an informal agreement. What began as a simple transaction evolved into a negotiation, and the exchange gradually shifted toward a mutual understanding, without guarantees or clearly defined terms. The promise had to endure, and so it transformed.

By attending to the connections forged along the way, to the informal economies negotiated between shores, the artist turns encounter into an act of creation. The exhibition unfolds not as the illustration of an anecdote, but as the extension of a process in which the work takes shape through currents and contingencies.

Totano brings together a series of works that carry both the memory of this agreement and the intention to honor it. They appear here as presences—companions imbued with memory and anticipation—bearing the traces of a commitment to be upheld, much like ex-votos entrusted to the sea to ward off chance or to give thanks to the unknown.

Curated by Claire Staebler