Nikos Liapis

At the tip of the Presqu’île, Lyon’s heart, the Saône meets the Rhône and continue to the Mediteranean together. If they could send back pictures from that journey, they would be images of lavender, vines, sun-bleached tiles and Greek and Roman ghosts. Blue, purple and red. Cypress green, yellow and white. It all starts somewhere around the end of the railway tracks which dive into the merging waters. The notion of borders has always fascinated me. Lines that are supposed to separate two territories, two cities, two meridians…

This is just another one of those boundary spots and I was thrilled to find it practically unchanged since my last visit twenty years ago. I stood there with my friend trying desperately to capture the sense of the place and the feelings and memories it evoked in me. The bodies of water right before my eyes, in their peacefully powerful struggle to become one. A scene full of symbolism.

It’s taken me weeks to get these words together. How do I do justice to this photograph that represents a part of the world so dear to me? In the end, it was a friend’s wish that gave meaning to the scene for me: may your life in the New Year be in flow. Simple and perfect.