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“How to Prevent a Drop of Water from Drying?” draws from the Buddhist concept of Bardo, a state of transition between death and rebirth. Created by international students in Paris, the exhibition reflects lived experiences of in-between states and will take form as a public exhibition in February 2026.

Help to Prevent a Drop of Water from Drying!

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Last Updated 24.10.31

HOW TO PREVENT A DROP OF WATER FROM DRYING?

VERNISSAGE - 18TH FEBRUARY, 2026
Hours of vernissage from 6 to 9PM.
49 Rue Ramey, 75018 Paris

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EXHIBITION DATES :
February 18-21, 2026

ABOUT

The drop dries up if it remains separate - just as the self, clinging to individuality, is confined,unable to drift with the natural flow of being. Left alone, it is bound to evaporate, just as the individual is bound to suffer and perish. When the drop enters the sea, it loses its separateness but gains eternity, continuing to exist in another form. In the same way, the self finds liberation by dissolving into the sea of awareness - by dropping away the sense of self and plunging into something greater than oneself.

Inspired by The Bardo Thödol (Fremantle & Trungpa, 1975), a Buddhist set of instructions guiding the dead between death to rebirth, and to offering the living insight into the journey between birth and death, the exhibition How to prevent a drop of water from drying? echoes these teachings, bringing a light to many forms of death that can occur within modern life. Bardo means ‘gap’. It is not only the interval of suspension after we die but also suspension in the living situations. Throughout our lives, we experience endings both small (a leaf falling from a tree) and large (the loss of a loved one), times when there is no clarity, no certainty. We are wired to shy away from the unfamiliar, plunge into denial, and cling to what we know. The Bardo Thödol invites us to recognise that it is not change itself that threatens us, but our resistance to trusting the unknown process of cultivating awareness and compassion in the bardo of life.

As Duchamp put it, “It’s not what you see that is art, art is the gap.” (Schwartz, 1970) Art is often celebrated when a piece is completed, yet at its core, it is a process — a continuous negotiation between idea, form, and perception. As it stated in the essay by psychiatrist Mark Epstein, that both the making and experiencing of art involve a shared state of mind in which the self and the object enhance and inform each other. (Baas & Jacob, 2004) This encounter opens a space of heightened consciousness - lucid, tense, and profoundly alive - where impermanence reveals itself not as a loss, but as a source of insight. “A feeling as of something limitless, unbounded,”(Baas & Jacob, 2004) as Freud described it, conveys a sense of the oceanic that connects us to something greater than ourselves.

In an attempt to explore bardo principles such as acceptance, impermanence, and
interdependence, the exhibition highlights practices that encourage us to embrace and navigate immediate transitions of all kinds.

BY THROWING IT INTO THE SEA

ARTISTS

Mehdi Babaei, Iran

Mehdi Babaei is an Iranian visual artist who has been living and working in France since 2021. Introduced to the art of Persian miniature painting by his father during
childhood, he developed an early and profound passion for painting, which became his main form of expression. After beginning his artistic studies at the University of Arts in Tehran, he continued his training in France at the École des Beaux-Arts de Versailles, where he graduated in 2024. In 2025, he obtained a professional diploma in fresco and in-situ art from the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris.
At the core of his practice lie the notions of memory, time, and the perception of space. His work has evolved naturally from the human body and portraiture toward nature and still life, in resonance with his daily environment and lived experience.
We selected this artist for the way he transforms the ephemeral or loss into quiet acts of remembrance. By relating human bodies to flowers, his frescoes turn violence and mortality into gestures of renewal. His reflections on memory, time, and space echo the exhibition’s exploration of the bardo—where death and life, absence and presence, coexist in fragile balance.

EXHIBITIONS

SOLO EXHIBITION

2025 Encounter Galerie des Beaux-Arts de Versailles (Fine Arts Gallery of Versailles) - France

2023 Night of Creation and Creativity in Versailles, Versailles - France

2019 Moments, O Gallery - Tehran

2010 Solo Exhibition Khaneh- Naghsh Gallery (House of Design Gallery) - IsfahanEXPOSITIONS

SÉLECTIONNÉES

2025 Art in Search of Peace: Resistance, Repair, Connection, United States Foundation,
Paris, France

2025 < DIVINE ORÉE >> Group Exhibition, Trinitaires Church, Metz, France

2024 <<Housemate >> Group Exhibition Baashgaah Gallery, Tehran, Iran

Seung Won Kwon, South Korea

Kwon obtained her IGCSE and International Baccalaureate Diploma at Hanoi International School. After initially beginning her studies at the University of California, San Diego, she fully
turned toward the arts. Since then, she has been admitted to the Master’s programs at the Royal College of Art, the University of the Arts London (Chelsea and Central Saint Martins), as well as
the Beaux-Arts de Paris (ENSBA, 3rd year), where she is currently enrolled. More recently, Kwon obtained the National Diploma in Art from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Bourges with the highest distinction, 20/20, Congratulations from the jury, while simultaneously pursuing a degree in philosophy at the University of Paris Nanterre (via distance learning).
We choose Kwon because her practice deeply explores the fragility of time, presence, and the everyday. Having experienced a near-death event that profoundly distorted her perception of
time, she brings an acute sensitivity to impermanence and the act of holding onto what fades. Through writing, installation, painting and performance, Kwon creates poetic spaces that suspend time and reveal its subtle textures—resonating perfectly with the exhibition’s meditation on preservation, transformation, and the ephemeral.

EXHIBITIONS

2025 | I Don’t Remember What We Agreed On (Collective Exhibition) | Atelier

Guillaume, Beaux Arts de Paris, France

Sehaj Malik, India

Sehaj Malik is a fourth-year student at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Her work follows a protocol-based approach, exploring organic mechanisms through performance drawings that are intrinsically linked to the place of their creation. Often working with charcoal, her practice develops through the physical movement of the body, pushing it to the point of fatigue.
Malik’s practice investigates space through the movements of her body, using iterative charcoal drawings to map gestures. Her work emphasizes process over outcome, allowing traces of movement to reveal a dynamic interplay between presence and absence. Each mark on the surface informs the next, creating a layered dialogue of movement and spatial awareness. She describes her works, “I placed my body in
continuous motion, a kind of trance that plays with elements of control and chaos
We selected Sehaj Malik for her exploration of movement as a living trace of presence and absence. Her drawings transform physical gestures into meditative acts, where repetition becomes both ritual and reflection. Rooted in memory and process, her work resonates with the exhibition’s focus on transition and transformation—revealing the body as a conduit between the material and the ephemeral.

Nazanin Pirmohammadi, Iran

Nazanin Pirmohammadi an Iranian artist based in France. After studying in Tehran,she obtained her DNAP from the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2025. Her work, at the crossroads of photography, video, and installation, explores social and political issues, particularly those related to the condition of women.
Nourished by both the personal and the collective, her practice delves into the tension between invisibility and the desire for visibility, between presence and absence, light and darkness.
Overall, her works construct a sensitive visual language in which lived experience and thought, technical mastery and letting go, find their balance.
We selected this artist for the way their work embodies the essence of the bardo—
capturing the fragile threshold between presence and absence, life and death. By
tracing the bodies of three generations, their images confront time directly, revealing moments when identity is stripped bare and existence itself is suspended. This exploration resonates deeply with the exhibition’s focus on impermanence and transformation.

EXHIBITIONS

2025 – Individual Anthropologies (Collective Exhibition, IMMIXgalerie) Incoming

2025 – La Rencontre (Exhibition Duo, Gallery of the School of Fine Arts of Versailles)

2025 – Virtual exhibition at Beaux-arts Numérique

Yashaswini Puthanpurayil Chakkapoyya, India

Indian artist Yashaswini Puthanpurayil Chakkapoyyan is currently studying at the Beaux-Arts in Paris in the studio of Tatiana Trouvé/ Chloé Quenum. She develops a practice combining painting, sculpture, and mosaics, where memory becomes a spiritual concept. Through the repetition of patterns, she seeks to preserve what has been forgotten, transforming forms into markers of time—from seconds to days, to the resonances of nostalgia.
We selected Yasha for her sensitive engagement with memory as a spiritual and artistic
practice. By eternalizing the traces of people, places, and fleeting affections, her work
transforms absence into presence. This approach resonates with the exhibition’s exploration of the bardo, where loss, remembrance and transformation converge, and
where memory itself becomes a site of renewal.

EXHIBITIONS

2025 - Novae Vitae (curator Anna Fossi and Chiara Mentore) Espace albatros, Montreuil

2025 - My Precious (Gallery Liza Fetissova)

2025 - Laure’s secret garden (Gallery Liza Fetissova)

2025 - this is how we walk on the moon (curator Charlotte houette) group showatelier Chloé Quenum (cours vitrée, Beaux-Arts de Paris)

Conference

2025 - Art history festival 2025, Fontainebleu Palace, Vrai-Faux semblants

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