Water is Memory

Water as a Metaphor for Memory

The Water is Memory festival was born in 2014 from the artistic universe of Fabrice Dubusset, founder and artistic director of the Procédé Zèbre company, based in Vichy since 1991. Based on the observation that water—omnipresent in Vichy's thermal identity—can serve as a metaphor for memory, the festival explores how "water refreshes memory" by taking over historic sites to resonate with theatre, spoken word, and artistic creation.

The Vichy racecourse, a founding location for the festival, hosted the performances of 13, a play by Chochana Boukhobza directed by Fabrice Dubusset, from the very first edition. This seminal work questions the memory of World War II and the Holocaust. Since then, the festival has continuously expanded its territory and forms, becoming a unique annual event in the cultural landscape of the Allier region.

A Festival Rooted in Places of Memory

The uniqueness of Water is Memory lies in its connection to the historic sites of the department. The festival takes over sites rich in memory—the racecourse, the Mal Coiffée prison, the former Cusset prison, villages in the Allier—to create performances and trails that dialogue between past and present. The Bus des Mémoires (Memory Bus), a memory and artistic journey between villages and rivers, has become one of the festival's highlights, taking spectators on a travelling tour across the region.

This approach of site-specific engagement is at the heart of Procédé Zèbre's identity. For over thirty years, the company has been experimenting with hybrid forms of performance that resonate with the spaces in which they intervene, from psychiatric hospitals to public squares, from high schools to heritage sites.

Theatre, Memory, and European Citizenship

Water is Memory goes beyond being a simple festival of performances to become a civic and European project. Through Erasmus+ partnerships and the Laboratories Iuvenis program, the festival brings together young people from France, Romania, and Austria for creation workshops where theatre, poetry, and music become vehicles for discussing memory, peace, tolerance, and freedom of expression.

The participatory workshops, open to high school students, amateur artists, and citizens, invite everyone to become active participants in the transmission of memory. Conferences and meetings complement the program, fostering reflection on contemporary forms of resistance. The photographic exhibition by Brigitte Brihat, L'Indicible, testifies to this desire to cross artistic perspectives on memory.

The project Sigmaringen — On the Trail of Lisa Franck, which brought together German and French artists, illustrates the festival's international dimension and its ability to forge links between European memories. This creation fueled the festival's energy during its 10th edition in May 2025.