At the Anatole Jakovsky Museum, artist Pascal Héranval weaves a living map between marine myths, migrations, and collective memory. A poetic and committed dive into naïve and contemporary art.
From March 29 to September 21, 2025, the Anatole Jakovsky International Museum of Naïve Art in Nice hosts a unique exhibition entitled “Sirens and Marvels. Peoples of the Seas”, putting in dialogue the singular creations of Vence-based artist Pascal Héranval with the museum’s rich collection of Brazilian naïve art. This cultural event takes place in the prestigious context of The Year of the Sea in Nice, coinciding with the third United Nations Conference on the Ocean (UNOC-3) scheduled for next June.
The exhibition offers a poetic journey, both visual and symbolic, guiding the visitor from land to sea, a subtle nod to Nice’s unique topography. At the heart of this carefully curated scenography is “The Bay of Angels”, a major work by Pascal Héranval, conceived as a monumental pictographic labyrinth of ten meters, evolving throughout the exhibition.
Inspired by his fourteen years spent in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, where he immersed himself in local naïve art and Afro-Brazilian popular traditions, Héranval develops a work imbued with great graphic sensitivity. The evolving piece, “The Bay of Angels”, composed of subtle lines and delicate dots, evokes a true graphic score where each line, each symbol, tells a story, inviting viewers to change perspectives: seen up close, they are precise and evocative details; from afar, a vast imaginary map is revealed.
Living works
This cartographic approach is also present in other of his works, such as his piece on the map of South America, evoking floating lands on the ocean and paying vibrant homage to Brazilian poet Castro Alves and the painful history of the slave trade. A strong symbolic dimension, subtly recalling current issues of migrations and contemporary uprootings.
Unique in its kind, “The Bay of Angels” is not static: Pascal Héranval, regularly present at the museum, invites the public to observe in real-time the evolution of his work. Local schools will actively contribute to this artistic process by creating paper boats that will symbolize this journey to the sirens, thus weaving a living dialogue between the artist, the work, and the community.
Between sirens, oceanic myths, and migratory stories, “Sirens and Marvels” plunges us into a profound and poetic artistic reflection. An immersive exhibition that celebrates the meeting between Brazilian naïve art, the contemporary creations of Pascal Héranval, and the unique cultural heritage bequeathed by Anatole Jakovsky, a visionary collector passionate about the peoples of the seas.
An invitation to explore differently, in the flow of creative tides, the wonders of our maritime imagination.