"Lyon - If I were your mirror"
Elodie Lefebvre

The exhibition « Lyon - If I were your mirror » presents films, drawings and images documenting the highlights of the three-year artistic residency led by artist Élodie Lefebvre within the Hospices Civils de Lyon and across the Lyon metropolitan area.

Beginning with a simple yet essential question“What is your wish?” the artist invited people at the end of life to reflect on their deepest desires. Without hierarchy in the face of death, the same question is also asked of their caregivers and loved ones.

Working with participants from a wide range of cultural and social backgrounds, Lefebvre gives form to their singular visions by collaborating with professional artists of different disciplines and generations, whom she calls « des corps miroirs » (mirror bodies). Their responses take the form of films. As individual contributions come together, the project gradually evolves into a collective cinematic work.

Conceived as an archival exhibition, « Lyon-If I were your mirror » presents the completed films alongside the sensitive traces of the creative process: drawings, texts, objects, fragments of conversations and materials produced during the creative sessions. Together, these elements reveal the encounters that shaped the project.

« If I were your mirror » is a sensitive, illuminating and universal work that invites us to rethink our relationship with death. Without denying its gravity, it makes room for desire, opening a space for hope.