Pauline Julier

Follow the Water

3-channel video, 4K, 5.1 sound, 51min, 2023
A film by Pauline Julier and Clément Postec

Winter 2021. Atacama Desert, Chile. Around one of the world's largest lithium mines, several protagonists recount their attachment to this land. An indigenous woman's commitment to water rights, the doubts of scientists exploring the desert as an analogue to Mars, the beliefs of industrialists, the spectres of colonization and the tales of new expalers collide. The quest for the traces of life in the universe deepens that of the film crew, vertiginous and absurd. Voices become entangled and speeches jammed. The arid, dry landscape of the desert soon merges with that of the Red Planet and its reasoned delirium. Like a crystal ball, Mars appears as the beginning and end of time.

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Pauline Julier

Born in 1981
Based in Geneva

Pauline Julier is an artist and filmmaker. She explores the links between man and his environment through stories, rituals, know-how and images. Her films and installations are composed of elements of diverse origins (documentary, theoretical, fictional) to reflect the complexity of our relationships with the world.

Her installations and films have been shown in contemporary art centers, institutions and festivals around the world (Centre Pompidou, Paris, Loop, Barcelona, Visions du Réel, Nyon, Tokyo Wonder Site, Wiels Brussels, etc.). She has twice received the Swiss Art Award (2010, 2021) and the "Mondes Nouveaux" grant from the French Department of Culture in 2022. She had a major solo exhibition at the Aargauer Kunsthaus (Switzerland) in 2024 and is currently working on her first feature-length fiction film.