[Toulouse, the underdog of French virology?]

Based on two fables from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which feature the characters Galatea and Niobe, I will explore aesthetic and ethical perspectives. How do these two fables (and, in their continuity, a few others) that have inspired so many artists allow us to mobilize important notions in art? And how do they lead us, despite the distance, to reflect on what Jean-Luc Nancy called “the intruder,” that is, a heart grafted into one’s own body thanks to cutting-edge medical techniques? This is what I will attempt to show in a free interpretation of Ovid’s great poem, concluding with a note on Christian Boltanski’s Les Archives du cœur.