Le Val de Seine is an urban project imagined by Françoise Schein for the tunnel of the SNCF train station in Les Mureaux. It is a response to residents’ requests to continue to work together after the successful experience of their artistic first project, Les Murmures, created for the façade of the Médiathèque des Mureaux in 2009.

Following this beautiful request from the residents, Françoise and the association Inscrire pursue the adventure in Les Mureaux by proposing the creation of a 26-meter long artwork under the train station tunnel.

The Val de Seine is a monumental cartographic project inspired by Antoine Grumbach’s vision of the “Grand Paris” of tomorrow, in which Paris would include the valley of the Seine as far as the sea.

To the residents, F. Schein proposes to create a participatory artwork in the form of a large imaginary herbarium, where everyone can express their cultural references while relying on documentation collected from the sources, images, archive texts, and documents available in the city’s media library. They all work individually or in groups during workshops of reflection and painting.

The painting is done in green and blue tones on a light gray background, with a long line formed by the curve of the river from Paris to Le Havre.  The Seine is a long Ariadne’s thread, in which are grafted bubble-leaf-shaped universes drawn by the participants. Participants’ names float in the Seine estuary, like the countless immigrants who shape the face of France.

Françoise Schein
Omar Camara
Lohana Schein

Chloe, Laetitia, Melanie, Valerie, Océane, Armand, Romain, Mathieu, Capucine, Corentin, Idir, Jean-Louis, Prescillia, Alice, Antoine, Remy, Annick, Mariama, Samia, Laure, Ana, Karim, Diane, Ziyad, Naiel, Sokaina, Ylyess, Younes, Mohamed, Emma, Sarah, Laura, Amina, Ryan, Stacy, Julie, Monique, Chloe, Djibril, Nathalie, Corinne, Saidou, Justine, Ibrahima, Marlon, Sarah, Fatima, Océane, Max, Inès, Samantha, Jason, Erwan, Basma, Melissa Elkes, Noelle, Solen, Maryze, Ismael, Isabelle, Jean, Younes, Moussa, Samantha, Meiva, Adama, Cassandra, Thiphaine…

Marianne Cantau
Cécile Fernandez
Le Maire des Mureaux François Garay
Entreprise Sarey

Ville des Mureaux
Réseau Ferré de France
SNCF

Françoise Schein
Omar Camara