Volume

Carry-le-Rouet, January 2021

The viewpoint is in an unlikely location: situated within a very large private housing estate, it is nevertheless accessible by the grace of the French coastal law and a well-marked long-distance footpath between the more or less luxurious houses.
The clear horizon, the sound of the Mediterranean backwash in the ears, the smell of the sea and the warmth of the January sun on the skin combine to give spectators the impression of being immersed in a wild, immense, infinite nature.
And then, in spite of the backlighting, they see lines drawn on the small wooden plank as if it had been pulled out of the grounding of a reckless ship. A polite request, a plea that calls into question the sensitive experience: this little piece of cigarette butt, a concentrate of humanity and toxic synthetic chemistry, is not out of proportion with this paradisiacal landscape. Two simple smokers and already one m3 of water is contaminated. But in front of them, 50m above the sea, the volume of water within sight is gigantic: with an average depth of 30m and a horizon of a little more than 25km, we can estimate that there are about 15 billion m3.
Their action is therefore infinitesimal compared to this volume… except when we learn that 40 billion cigarettes are consumed per year in France. A volume quite sufficient to invisibly and irreversibly alter this paradise.