As part of the Saison Africa 2020 in Paris, El Anatsui was commissioned with the opening event in La Conciergerie, also known as Palais de la Cité. The installation 'En quête de liberté' (20 May - 14 November 2021) was the artist's first solo exhibition in France; curated by N’Goné Fall. It was located within the gothic architecture of the Hall of the Guards, a vaulted space and one of the few surviving 14th-century architectural elements of La Conciergerie. 

For this new collaboration, El Anatsui worked with Factum and the October Gallery to produce a multi-projection installation onto a moving silk surface. It was shown in the context of five of El Anatsui’s signature ‘bottlecap’ pieces and an array of vast boulders. Commenting on the theme of migration, movement and fluidity the installation harnessed the forces of nature, through a film of the two branches of the Seine surrounding the Île de la Cité where la Conciergerie is located. The five elements water, wind, wood, metal and stone were all present. The work centred on two video installations projected onto ‘rivers' of rippling silk (1.9 x 26 x 0.47 m in size) located next to the central pillars of the Salle des Gens d’Armes.

The parachute silk was continually kept in motion by two hundred and forty computer-controlled silent fans. Four arch-shaped structures, placed at intervals of approximately six meters across the platforms, supported the projectors that create a seamless illusion of the river.

The video projection was created in Factum's 3D department (with the help of Enrique Esteban, Quinner Baird and Carlos Sanjuan) using the river Seine as reference. The whole system could be easily operated by the Conciergerie staff through a central cabinet, also custom-made, containing the individual switches of each section of the installation.

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