PERMANENT INSTALLATION OF THE ARTWORK “OCTO - JENNY HANIVER” IN SÈTE, FRANCE

Amid the shifting shadows of the ocean depths, an enigmatic creature emerges: Octo. A disturbing apparition, an echo of ancient tales, it embodies the fascinating mystery of the seas and the sacred fear they have inspired for centuries. Inspired by a marine animal long perceived as a “devil of the sea” — a mythologized ray, once sold as a strange siren in European cabinets of curiosities as early as the sixteenth century — this sculpture was born of a long process of research and creation, begun in the 1990s.

Octo is more than a work of art. It is a bridge between two worlds: that of humankind and that of the abyss. First presented at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais during the exhibition Beauté Animale in 2012, and later at the heart of a major exhibition at the CRAC in Sète in 2017, it forms part of a long-term artistic journey, nourished by a marine obsession and a deep ecological sensibility.

Installed in the new Jardin du Sémaphore, facing the infinity of the sea, this life-size bronze sculpture lives to the rhythm of the elements. Its patina, altered by salty air and the touch of visitors, gradually tells a unique story over time — that of an ancestral bond between humankind and the ocean.

Octo is an ode to those marine creatures that haunt the collective imagination, from science to legend, from Mediterranean ports to the tales of explorers. It finds in Sète, my second home, a natural, living setting, open to the world. This book is an invitation to dive into its universe.

— Johan Creten, Sète, 2025