In Nice, the Contemporary Art Biennale tells the story of the city's special relationship with the sea.

The first conference organized by the United Nations on the need to protect the oceans took place in New York in 2017. The third, most recent, conference just ended in Nice on June 13. However, we have known for almost seventy-five years that the sad habit humans have of polluting the seas that surround them – and sustain them – can lead to catastrophe. This was revealed in 1951 by The Sea Around Us , published in French in 1958 by Stock under the title La Mer autour de nous , a pioneering book by Rachel Carson (1907-1964). The marine biologist is also the author of Silent Spring (1962). − French translation, Silent Spring , published by Stock in 1963 −, which, for the first time, linked the increase in cancer cases to the massive use of pesticides − she is responsible for the banning of DDT −, which earned her the title of "mother of ecology". This is the theme of the sixth Biennale of Contemporary Art in Nice, organized by Jean-Jacques Aillagon and Hélène Guenin.

From this point of view, artists and organizers have spared no effort: eleven different events spread throughout the city have been linked to the event. The originality, for a biennial, is that they are not limited to contemporary art but also tell the story of the special relationship that the city has had for millennia with the sea: did we know that the Bay of Angels owes its name to a curious fish, half-ray, half-shark, which once swarmed there, the angel shark ( Squatina squatina ), today decimated, notably by trawling and now classified among the 100 most endangered species in the world? You will find a stuffed (very small) example – if left to grow, the animal can exceed 2 meters –, exhibited at the Villa Masséna, in the exhibition "Nice, from the shore to the sea".

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