A Mermaid’s Tears Are Always Blue

2021
Mixed media: artist’s book, cyanotypes on glass, sound 

Cecilia Germain thinks of the sea as an archive: unstructured, always in flux, but at the same time permanent and eternal. Information flows over, under, or in the fluctuating masses of water, but it never disappears. The world’s seas hold a great deal of pain in reserve: true histories of power and violence, but also tales of resurrection, redemption, and utopian fantasies that give us hope and strength. In this piece, Germain seizes on facts and fictions within an Afrocentric paradigm. She brings to the surface stories from the archive of the sea and weaves together transatlantic experiences and memories with other places and people on land. 

Cecilia Germain (b. 1974, Sweden) is a graduate of Konstfack, the University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm (2006). She is part of the art project Skogen mellan oss (the Forest Between Us) organized by Konstfrämjandet (the People’s Movements for Art Promotion) and part of Botandets iver (the Urge to Cure), a collaboration with Maja Hammarén, Ioana Cojocariu, Johanna Willenfelt, and other artists. Germain’s first solo exhibition was at Botkyrka konsthall in 2021. Her interdisciplinary practice includes photography, watercolor, olfactory art, installation, and performance. In her work, Germain is concerned with power structures, alternative health practices, colonial economies in relation to plants, and the historical role of botanicals in relation to humans. She explores narratives that originate from the experience of belonging to an African diaspora and often use what is called fiction to come close to what could be true. Germain is currently residing in Uppsala.

Röd Sten Konsthall