Après Vous, Le Déluge

Après Vous, Le Déluge is an art installation by SUPERFLEX made specifically for Galeries Lafayette in Champs Elysées, Paris. The work consists of a sculptural blue dashed line fixed on the walls of the building’s atrium. While constructed with solid and tangible sculptures, the discontinued line becomes an indicator of an invisible yet probable limit: the estimated height of sea level rise within the next century as a consequence of climate change. The suggested height has been established according to the predictions of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The location of the sculptures in the atrium of Galeries Lafayette informs the work’s meaning and interpretation: it is located in the French capital, host of the 2015 international climate conference where the Paris Agreement was signed with the unprecedented support of 196 states. However, the work is also an intervention into the familiar space of the department store, a space defined by the very consumption that threatens the climate. The blue dashed line interjects itself as a latent reminder of the climate threat that is rapidly seeping into the structures of our quotidian reality, and acts as an invitation to consider the palpable consequences of climate change into our everyday lives.

In this way, Après Vous, Le Déluge provides visitors with an abstract but visual representation of what might happen to their immediate environment in case the worse climate change projections finally materialise.