Drowning World - Gideon Mendel

With his project Drowning World, he highlights the human and environmental consequences of floods around the world. It reveals the vulnerability of everyone in the face of these natural disasters, and gives the victims, often treated through statistics, dignity and humanity.

Gideon Mendel uses photography as a tool of memory and awareness. Like the great war photographers, it captures the suffering, but also the strength and courage of those affected, inviting us to a collective awareness of current climate issues.

The exhibition at the Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation de l'Isère offers an original selection of the series that make up Drowning world:

- Submerged portraits, intimate portraits of men and women victims of major floods

- Deluge, a video installation based on the Drowning world project

- and Gisela’s story from Watermarks, a photographic archive damaged by water

Gisela’s story is presented for the first time in this form, combining intimacy and testimony. While Gisela Pietsch-Marx documented her family’s history through personal photographs from the early 20th century to the 1980s, her work was brutally interrupted by one of the worst floods in Germany. Gideon Mendel, touched by the dramatic impact of the waters on these archives and by this history carried away into the waves, proposes an installation that brings out a memory in danger.

An exhibition to discover, to reflect together on our relationship with the world and the fragility of our existences.

This exhibition is part of the cultural season supported by the Department of Isère, "EAU, QUELLE HISTOIRE !" April 2026 – September 2027