On January 30, three authors settled in the Georges-Hermant swimming pool (Paris 19e) to observe its excitement: Coline Pierré, who published fiction for young people, Zoé Besmond de Senneville, who wrote an autobiographical story about her hearing loss (Diary of my earsFlammarion, 2021), and the creator of the Instagram account Parisian swimmer. All three were inspired by the poetry of this ordinary place, after having frequented it as swimmers.
This aquatic tropism convinced Alizée Guyaux, director of the aquatic area, to open its doors to them for a three-week writing residency. Swimming pool staff were mobilized to support the temporary transformation of the public establishment. Thus the three residents are in line with recent publications such as Swimming logby Chantal Thomas (Seuil, 2022), Guide to Parisian swimming poolsby Colombe and Marine Schneck (Allary, 2022), or even The Swimmer (Gallimard, 2023), story that Pierre Assouline dedicated to the Jewish champion Alfred Nakache, who participated in the 1948 Olympic Games after being deported to Auschwitz.
“Psycho-aquatic profile”
For Zoé Besmond from Senneville, 36 years old, the swimming pool is “a separate space where social codes are abolished”. For Parisian swimmer, it’s “a bubble cut off from the world” : “You are no longer reachable. You no longer exist for anyone”, sums up the one who records her curiosity for swimming pools on her Instagram account (seven thousand subscribers). In 2021, finding her usual pool closed – the Alfred-Nakache swimming pool (Paris 20ᵉ) – she fell back on Georges-Hermant. “I then felt a creative overexcitement, as powerful as a trip to a new country”she notes.
After this epiphany, she scoured the capital’s swimming pools and documented their history. “What is fascinating is the fact of finding yourself with other individuals in public space and in confusing conditions. We share an intimate moment with people we don’t know. » Parisian swimmer pays attention to the behavior of users: swimmers who take a line too fast for them, the different ways of entering the water, the routines in the take-off zone, etc. “It’s a small theater that can become the starting point for lots of stories. I call “mailology” the activity which consists of drawing up the “psycho-aquatic” profile of a swimmer, based on the swimsuit he or she wears.said, amused, the social media regular.
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