iMusée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac7e arrondissement
Echoes of the Tides
An installation by Yo-E Ryou in the music box of the Collections Plateau, unfolding through sound, breath and duration to explore resonance between bodies, water and memory.
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You walk into the Boîte à musique, the music box on the Collections Plateau, sit down and listen to people breathing. Yo-E Ryou built the piece from the breath of the haenyeo, the women free-divers of Jeju Island in South Korea: measured breaths between dives, effort and exhaustion, resting breath, mixed with sea sounds and recordings made with the divers themselves.
Ryou moved to Jeju in 2021, learned to swim and dive, trained at a haenyeo school and then went into the sea with local divers. The work came out of the museum's 2025 sound residency, produced with Le Fresnoy. It has no beginning or end and no route to follow: the museum asks you to sit and listen at your own pace.
Come for a slow, solitary stop inside the main collection, not for objects. The €14 museum ticket (€11 reduced) covers it, it is open until 22:00 on Thursdays, and the museum lists it as adapted for visually impaired visitors.
Look for
The breath of a dive
Listen for the cycle the piece is built on: the measured breathing before a dive, the held breath, then the effort, exhaustion and rest of coming back up.
Recordings made with the haenyeo
Among the breathing and the sea sounds are recordings Ryou made with the Jeju divers she trained alongside.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Going Solo
- Locals Who've Seen It All
Skip if
You want objects to look at: this is a sound work made from breathing.
With kids
The museum lists it as suitable for all ages, and it is covered by the standard museum ticket.
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Image credits
9
- Echoes of the TidesMusee du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac
- Florian Krewer: woven thinCourtesy of Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (MAM)
- Kerry James Marshall: The HistoriesCourtesy of Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (MAM)
- Simone Fattal: Des villes au fond d'un lacPhoto : François Doury © Adagp, Paris, 2026
- Musée du quai Branly - Jacques ChiracJean-Pierre Dalbera, CC BY 2.0
- Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (MAM)Lustucrucaca / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Palais de TokyoGuilhem Vellut via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Palais Galliera - Musée de la Mode de ParisJoe deSousa / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
- Musée national des arts asiatiques - GuimetLionel Allorge / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0