Que le feu soit tendre, que la mer soit bonne is a journey across the Mediterranean that explores the fractures of the contemporary Western world. Confronted with the remains of an ancient imaginary, the photographers search there for the conditions of a new narrative. The first monograph by Elsa Martinez and Marie Hervé, this project is the culmination of a long creative process, nourished by travels, observations and reflections carried out in the territories of the South. From Sicily to Greece, from the south of France to the shores of Palestine, it unfolds an imaginary cartography of crumbling, where ancient myths disintegrate and collective memories waver. The book was conceived as a work in its own right, a space where photographs, texts and printed matter answer one another without hierarchy. At the heart of the work sits a text by Théo Casciani: a mythological fable that does not seek to explain the images but leans on them to unfold a futuristic and poetic narrative. More than a mere collection of images, the book offers an immersion in an uncertain landscape, traversed by light, ruin and silence. The project is built as a living archive, a reflection on the strata that compose us and the narratives that shape our understanding of the world.