This edition of the “Composing knowledge to imagine a sustainable future 2023” call for projects promotes artistic projects that involve several fields of research and practice, with the aim of building new imaginaries that will enable our societies to embark on the ecological transition and imagine a sustainable future.
Petrified Museum – Lighthouse Company
FRANCE
“Le Musée pétrifié” (The Petrified Museum) is a theatrical action-research project by The Lighthouse company, based on a corpus of archives from the British Geological Survey (BGS) in Nottingham, northern England: the world’s largest collection of geological specimens collected since 1835. The project, which tackles a subject rarely dealt with in theatrical circles – the mineral world – brings together skills as varied as design, performance, human and experimental sciences. They have created a trio of experiences: an exhibition stroll, a laboratory practice space and a performance, a dreamlike choreography for young audiences.
There is another world and it’s in this one – La Turbine
PAYS DE LA LOIRE
The Turbine association, a collective based in Nantes, brings together a dozen artists, researchers and reporters who want to set individuals and organizations in motion to create a desirable future through artistic and scientific narratives and experiments. In 2023-2024, the members of the collective are working to develop 3 regional projects in an Arts and Sciences network, with a citizen participation dimension: “Océan, Paysage mouvant”, a performance combining dance and biology; “Des mots pour demain”, a creative and participative foresight workshop on the challenges of transition; “Créations sonores et sessions d’écoute”, a collection of words from young people and adults, on the themes of gender, utopia and the body.
https://www.leblogdelaturbine.org
Retrofutur: new stories and tools for a participatory transition – Atelier 21
ILE DE FRANCE
Atelier 21 supports the Paleo-Energetics research program, which compiles a retrospective vision of our shared energy history to learn from it and serve the energy transition with the help of collective intelligence. “Retrofutur” is a variation that aims, through ideation workshops, to bring together 3 pilot partner structures (a higher education school, a local authority and a company), a scientific committee and an artist around a common program to confront and complete their prospective approaches to the energy transition. Imagined as an experiment in collective intelligence, the objective of this project is to develop a participatory tool to envision the world of 2025-2050.
At Chazelet school – Les Augures
PROVENCE-ALPES-COTE D’AZUR
In a mountain hamlet, the “A l’école du Chazelet” project aims to create a place that can be described as communal, where people can work on the intersecting issues of culture, ecology and the mountains. This project aims to rehabilitate the old school of the hamlet to make it a place of residence for artists, a space for meetings and debates, a cultural place for and with the village and its inhabitants. Les Augures sees this project as a showcase, a manifesto for the necessary ecological transition of the cultural sector.
Mountain trilogy – Scènes Obliques
AUVERGNE RHONE ALPES
In the Belledonne massif, near Grenoble, this research-action project extends from the foothills to the summit of the mountain, to initiate a process of reflection involving researchers and local residents on the mountain as a living environment. Structured around 3 artistic projects, it aims to imagine the future of the mountains not only in Isère, but also elsewhere in the world. This first stage is intended to inaugurate an “international mountain cultural space” (ECIM).
Orée. Multimedia ethnographic survey of interactions between agricultural and forest landscapes in the Haut Beaujolais – Tillandsia
AUVERGNE RHONE ALPES
This project questions both the industrial model that dominates forestry and agriculture in the Haut Beaujolais region, and highlights alternatives for restoring biodiversity and landscape balance. In the form of an ethnographic survey filmed in the heart of the forested and agricultural landscapes of the northern Rhône department, a creative documentary and multimedia exhibition highlight the environmental issues of this territory and the way its inhabitants see it.
Cinema on the ruins of the future – Echelle Inconnue
NORMANDIE
Supported by Échelle Inconnue, a Rouen-based association involved in long-term action-research into the hidden face of urban manufacturing, and triggered by the Lubrizol factory fire (2019), the Cinéma sur les ruines du futur project aims to decipher the other side of the Seine Axis reindustrialization process. The production of a documentary notebook, a poetic video booth, a residency for authors in charge of writing dystopias, invitations to researchers, and debates with citizen collectives combine to collectively develop other knowledge and other narratives, contrary to the discourse on the virtuous metropolis. Ultimately, all of these steps will lead to the production of a film.
Pont Ver(t)s – Le Citron jaune, Centre national des Arts de la Rue et de l’Espace Public
PROVENCE-ALPES-COTE D’AZUR
This initiative by Citron jaune and artist Thierry Boutonnier is sowing the seeds of innovation in Port Saint Louis du Rhône. In the context of a municipality exposed to the externalities of the Fos-Marseille petro-industrial complex, this participatory plant work intersects with issues of food insecurity and soil pollution. Artists, researchers, social actors and residents are working to plant orchards in the city’s political districts. These food beacons, composed, planted and cultivated in a collaborative way, aim to change our sensitive relationship with trees while experimenting with innovative urban agriculture methods adapted to polluted environments. This collective act should lead to the first production of olive oil in Port Saint Louis du Rhône by 2025.
New stories for a new world – La filature du Mazel
OCCITANIE
Filature du Mazel’s “Nouveaux récits pour un nouveau monde” (New stories for a new world) is a collaborative project based on the ecological challenges of the Cévennes, with an inclusive approach. It articulates the intervention of artists and scientists with a view to raising awareness among the general public to transform imaginations and put into action. Art as a tool for popularizing science through various forms of artistic creation and cultural events, to contribute to the construction of “a new world”, to remake society with the Earth.
Être(s) situé(s): de la source aux confluences – Le Dancing – Centre de développement chorégraphique national Dijon Bourgogne Franche-Comté
BURGUNDY FRANCHE COMTE
A 3-year in situ laboratory project designed with and around the work of choreographer, teacher and dance researcher Laurent Pichaud, invited as associate artist at Dancing. It also engages in a multi-partnership between higher education schools (International Master’s Degree in Practice, École Nationale Supérieure de Paysage de Versailles-Marseille), artists, residents and local associations involved in the field of the environment. It unfolds around three moments of the “Entre cours et jardins” festival, and is part of a creative process in situ, with water as the common thread running through the project.
Hydromonde en Brière – Slow Danse
PAYS DE LA LOIRE
The project uses art as a means of raising ecological awareness in communal and inter-communal areas of the Loire-Atlantique département. Through artistic infusion projects, the association invites a poetic and sensitive reflection on local environmental issues. This takes the form of weeks of residency over several months, followed by an “event” that allows us to tell the story of the land we’ve invested in and the issues at stake.
Des lianes aux algues – La Compagnie, place de création
PROVENCE-ALPES-COTE D’AZUR
La Compagnie, lieu de création invites us to explore the mysteries of the plant kingdom with its spellbinding project entitled “From lianas to algae”. Inspired by the work of Dénetem Touam Bona, this artistic journey transcends cultural boundaries to reveal the deep links between man and nature. Like vibrating strings, vines become allies in the fight against the commodification of life, symbols of resistance and subversive wisdom.
ARTLABO RETREAT: Island Ecologies – Ultra Association
BRITTANY
Artists and scientists come together to explore the social and ecological issues that are rooted in island lands with a sensitive geographical context. The project is part of a long-term perspective at the crossroads of scientific and artistic approaches (on the islands of Batz, Ouessant and Molène). They weave links between ancestral knowledge and contemporary innovations, inviting everyone to rethink their relationship with these ecosystems. Through research-creation residencies, they redraw the relationship with the environment by understanding it as a set of relationships whose mesh constitutes a relational ecology. The objective is to produce knowledge that generates autonomy, diversity and sharing.
En transition – Association Rezonance
AUVERGNE RHONE ALPES
This project explores the fertile field of agroecology. Through participatory audiovisual, committed artists collect stories and images to highlight the actors of change in the agricultural world, concerned with the safeguarding of peasant know-how and the sustainability of agricultural space. Their creative approach, nurtured by collaboration with local communities, offers an authentic look at the challenges and successes of the agroecological transition. Through an immersive installation designed for wide distribution, they plant the seeds of collective consciousness by questioning the societal issues of our consumption choices.
Mémorimages – ABERS LAB – Ateliers Bretagne Ecole Regard et Sciences
BRITTANY
The Association seeks to renew the relationship with the environment by recreating links between generations sharing a common territory, marked by environmental amnesia – the result of a generational rupture and a break in the relationship maintained with the environment. Through creative workshops led by artists and scientists, younger generations come together alongside elders to share stories and memories, revealing the richness of our shared environmental heritage. Based on archival films from the Cinémathèque de Bretagne and personal stories, these encounters open a window on our past, reviving the collective memory and renewing links with our environment.