Yesterday, with the “Parle-moi, Paris!” club, we visited the Bourdelle Museum — a place I thought I already knew well. Yet it suddenly revealed itself in a new way. The sculpture Victory gave us unexpected ground for reflection.
Parle-moi, Paris! brings together people who do not yet speak French fluently. But the discussion that unfolded made us, suddenly, “good speakers.” Or rather — deeply sensitive ones.
Bourdelle’s Victory is neither triumphant nor exultant. On the contrary. Her face carries fatigue and gravity. A woman holding a sword, as if scanning the battlefield: is anyone still alive, or has enough blood already been shed?
Looking at this exhausted face, one understands that the outcome of any conflict is far from triumph. We live in a fragile shared space where we must learn to see not only borders, but also our responsibility toward one another.
I increasingly think not only about the horrors my Ukraine is enduring, but also about what my Russia will have to go through. I belong half to one culture, half to another. This war concerns me personally, even if I do not take part in it.
What will we become afterwards?
What will remain on our faces?
So this is how a visit to a museum — meant to speak about beauty — led us somewhere far deeper.