Voir la mer: a free contemporary exhibition at the Maif Social Club - photos

Contemporary artists draw inspiration from the oceans to create original works, sometimes amusing, sometimes disturbing... Come and discover the Voir la mer exhibition, presented at the Maif Social Club from October 11, 2025 to July 25, 2026.

Many Parisians dream of being able to"see the sea" on weekends or vacations. But this little pleasure trip sometimes hides darker realities. Its fine sandy beaches and clear waters, its unfathomable depths filled with life and little-known creatures, this ecosystem essential to our life and balance, this place battered by intensive fishing, by human excesses, this place of hope and suffering for migrants in search of a better life... The oceans can have a thousand and one faces, and inspire artists in many ways.

From October 11, 2025 to July 25, 2026, head to the Maif Social Club to discover these different ways of perceiving the ocean. The Voir la mer (Seeing the Sea) exhibition is free and brings together more than fifteencontemporary artists, who have taken up this rich and diverse subject to tell us about the life... And the survival of the ocean.

The Maif Social Club exhibition takes up a variety of themes relating to the ocean, climate and theenvironment, politics... The works range from a magical stroll through marine flora and fauna to an ocean of plastic waste, fishing farms and phantasmagorical aquatic monsters. Each artist finds a different inspiration in the face of this oceanic immensity.

We admire, for example, hybrid creatures from the dark depths of the oceans, a textile installation showing all the colors that water and sand can take on, seaside landscapes in transition, installations depicting the abuses of industrial fishing...

Science and art also come together in creations showing the impact of pollution and plastic waste in the seas, in projects revealing the destruction caused by the fishing and trading industries...

The Maif Social Club takes us on a short but fascinating artistic and educational journey. The labels provide a wealth of information on the science and biology of the seabed. Others evoke the economic, social and environmental consequences of man's overexploitation of the oceans. Alongside, the artists explain how they interpret these subjects, with their own creative vision.

This exhibition brings together original works, sometimes amusing, sometimes poetic, sometimes horrifying. Some of the creations may seem ironic: with humor, the artists denounce the destruction of these marine ecosystems, and of the societies that live off the oceans.

Each in their own way, the Maif Social Club artists want to show the fragile beauty of these oceans, the consequences of our lifestyles, and the need to change our ways to bring these unique ecosystems back to life. A committed exhibition to discover free of charge.

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