Chus Martínez & Alex Jordan: Animal behavior and non-human esthetics in times of climate challenges

As part of the 4th season of the "Creators facing Climate Emergency" series hosted at the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris, the Fondation Thalie invites visual artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané to discuss with art historian Teresa Castro. Daniel Steegmann Mangrané's recent work focuses on the notion of "feral thinking" proposed by Juliana Fausto — ferality being, in the Brazilian writer’s own words "a transformation of what was once tamed into something that is no longer so, suggesting that maybe survival in the Anthropocene has something to do with becoming feral." The artist meets Teresa Castro, a lecturer at Paris 3, who's worked on the relationship between weeds and cinema, animism, as well as notions of nature and queer botany.   Created in 2020 by the Fondation Thalie, this series of conversations between artists, designers and scientists committed to a post-carbon society aims to pass on new thinking and knowledge to inspire a whole new generation of creators, to invent imaginaries of transition, and to design and implement new ways of producing in the light of depleting natural resources. The great ecological challenge of our time. Guests: Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, visual artist, and Teresa Castro, art historian, Lecturer in film and audiovisual studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle. Co-moderated by Chiara Vecchiarelli, curator of the program and Myriam Lefkowitz, artist choreographer. Born and trained in Barcelona, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. Both in his sculptures and installations, which are extremely fragile and incorporate altered organic materials, and in his film work, the artist experiments with the correspondences between organic and geometric forms, as well as the complex web of dependencies between the natural order and the order created by human beings. He is about to open in Paris "La pensée férale", a two-part solo exhibition at Esther-Schipper and Mendes Wood (2/04 - 26/05/2024) and has exhibited as part of various solo exhibitions, among at MACBA, Barcelona (2023-2024); Kiasma, Helsinki (2023) ; Institut d'Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes (2022) ; Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2019); Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona (2018); Museo Serralves, Porto (2017); MAMM, Medellín (2016). His work has been included in group exhibitions including, MoMA, New York (2023); Bourse de Commerce, Paris (2023); Gare de Hambourg, Berlin (2022); Liverpool Biennale (2021); Taipei Biennale (2020); Centre Pompidou, Metz (2017);14th Lyon Biennale (2017); Berlin Biennale, Berlin (2016); New Museum Triennial, New York (2015); Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid (2014).   Teresa Castro is a lecturer in film studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle. A significant part of her recent research focuses on the links between cinema and animism, plant life forms in visual culture and environmental histories of photography and cinema. In this context, she has published 'The Mediated Plant' (E-flux, 2019) and co-edited with Perig Pitrou and Marie Rebecchi the collective work Puissance du végétal et cinéma animiste. La vitalité révélée par la technique (Presses du réel, 2020). With Brenda Edgar and Estelle Sohier, she co-ordinated the "Histoires écologiques de la photographie" dossier in the journal Transbordeur (2024).   Based on a curatorial proposal by the Fondation Thalie, this fourth season hosted at the École des Arts Décoratifs is organised by Chiara Vecchiarelli, coordinator of the programme Creators facing Climate Emergency, in co-construction with Patrick Laffont-DeLojo, teacher in stage design at the École des Arts Décoratifs. In partnership with the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris

Invited to take part in the 12th edition of the Salon Art Genève 2024 to present its art collection, Fondation Thalie organized an off-site "Créateurs Urgence Climat" event as part of the ArtTalks conference program of the fair.  Linking art, science and ecology, this conversation between the artist Claudia Comte, a major figure on the Swiss and international scene based in the Basel region, and the Spanish curator Mónica Bello, Head of the Arts at CERN programme – the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva – is an invitation to explore biomorphic universes and symbiotic forms, techno-scientific knowledge and cosmic phenomena.   Claudia Comte (b. 1983, Grancy) is a Swiss artist based in Basel, Switzerland. Her practice is guided by a longstanding interest in teasing out the history and memory of biomorphic forms through traditional hand processes, industrial and machine technologies. Comte’s site-specific installations bring together monumental wall paintings and sculptures playfully inspired by organic patterns and morphology, paying testament to the intelligence and transformative capacities of the ecological world. Her work has been widely presented, including Solo Houses, Matarranña (2023), Globus Public Art Project in collaboration with Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2023), Casa Wabi, Mexico 2023, König Galerie im KHK Wien (2022), Belgrade Biennale (2021), Museo Nacional Thyssen- Bornemisza, Madrid (2021), Castello di Rivoli, Rome (2019), among others.   Mónica Bello is art Historian and Curator. Since 2015, she is Head of Arts at CERN at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, where she leads and supervises the laboratory’s art strategy and the artistic programs (residencies, art commissions, exhibitions). Curator of Exploring the Unknown, the inaugural art exhibition for the CERN Science Gateway, the new visitor centre of the Laboratory designed by Renzo Piano, her most recent curated exhibition is Dark Matters for the Science Gallery Melbourne, and the Icelandic Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale with the artist Sigurður Guðjónsson. Bello works internationally participating in selection committees, advisory boards, and mentorship programs. She is a regular speaker at conferences and active in several programmes in Europe and globally, where art and cultural innovation are the focus.    This conversation has been organized in partnership with Art Genève. Created in 2020 by Fondation Thalie, the "Créateurs Urgence Climat" programme of conversations invites artists, designers, thinkers and scientists to the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris each month to share new knowledge in the light of the climate transition and to think about reasoned artistic production in the era of a post-carbon society. Further info online.

For the 4th season of “Créateurs Urgence Climat” (October 2023 – May 2024), the Foundation is inviting curator and art historian Chus Martínez and scientist Alex Jordan to discuss animal behaviour and non-human aesthetics in the face of the ecological challenge. Created in 2020 by the Fondation Thalie, this series of conversations between artists, designers and scientists committed to a post-carbon society aims to pass on new thinking and knowledge to inspire a whole new generation of creators, to invent imaginaries of transition, and to design and implement new ways of producing in the light of depleting natural resources. The great ecological challenge of our time.   Guests: Chus Martínez, curator and art historian and Alex Jordan, scientist. Co-moderated by Chiara Vecchiarelli, curator of the program and Flora Bouteille, teacher at the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris. How can we rethink our aesthetic categories in the light of non-human aesthetic and architectural criteria? What can animals and plants teach us about the way we see, learn and produce? How can we take into account, and translate, the need of the ecosystems of which we are a part, so as to envision the future as a co-creation that takes place in the encounter between the human and the non-human? Our guests discuss how aesthetic criteria of the non-human world (plants, animals) can help us think about a changing world in the age of ecological challenges.   Chus Martínez, who has a background in philosophy and art history, is head of the Institute Art Gender Nature FHNW Academy of Arts and Design in Basel and curator at der TANK. She was the expedition leader of The Current, a project initiated by TBA21–Academy (2018–2020) and between 2020-2022 she has been the artistic director of the Ocean Space, Venice, a space initiated by TBA21–Academy. The Current is also the inspiration behind Art is Ocean, a series of seminars and conferences held at the Institute Art Gender Nature which examines the role of artists in the conception of a new experience of nature. She previously worked as chief curator at El Museo Del Barrio, New York. For dOCUMENTA(13) (2012) she was head of department, and a member of the Core Agent Group. Other past positions include chief curator at MACBA, Barcelona (2008–2011), director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein (2005–2008) and artistic director of Sala Rekalde, Bilbao (2002–2005). She curated the National Pavilion of Cataloniaat the 56th Biennale di Venezia (2015) as well as the National Pavilion of Cyprus in 2005. She recently co-edited together with Sabine Himmelsbach the publication Coding Care—Towards a Technology for Nature, she edited and wrote Like This! Natural Intelligence As Seen by Art (2021).   Alex Jordan is a permanent Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute, specialising in animal behaviour and heading the Comparative Behavioural Evolution research group. He works on oceans, lakes and forests, where animals live and have evolved. He has held editorial positions at The American Naturalist and Movement Ecology and his practice lies at the interface between science, art, and community engagement, collaborating with artists such as Tabita Rezaire, SUPERFLEX, TBA-21 and Tomás Saraceno. As a scientist, Jordan takes computational approaches developed for model laboratory systems such as Drosophila and zebrafish, and uses them in environments where animal and plant behaviour has evolved – Lake Tanganyika, the Mediterranean Sea, coral reefs and tropical rainforests. Using techniques such as automated behavioural tracking and 3D reconstruction of natural environments, and working on our perception of the animal world, Alex Jordan challenges our preconceptions and gives us a real insight into the non-human experience. Based on a curatorial proposal by Fondation Thalie, this fourth season hosted at the École des Arts Décoratifs is organised by Chiara Vecchiarelli, coordinator of the programme Creators facing the climate emergency, in co-construction with Patrick Laffont-DeLojo, teacher in stage design at the École des Arts Décoratifs. In partnership with the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris

For the 4th season of “Créateurs Urgence Climat” (October 2023 – May 2024) in partnership with the École des Arts Décoratifs Paris, Fondation Thalie invites artist and agroecologist Fernando García-Dory and jurist Xenia Chiaramonte to discuss agroecology and the New Imaginaries of Law. Created in 2020 by the Fondation Thalie, this series of conversations between artists, designers and scientists committed to a post-carbon society aims to pass on new thinking and knowledge to inspire a whole new generation of creators, to invent imaginaries of transition, and to design and implement new ways of producing in the light of depleting natural resources. The great ecological challenge of our time.   Guests: Fernando García-Dory, artist and agroecologist et Xenia Chiaramonte, jurist Co-moderated by Chiara Vecchiarelli, curator of the programme, and Patrick Laffont de Lojo, scenography teacher at the École des Arts Décoratifs Paris. How can we understand a territory from the inside, and thwart the illusion of a technosphere always already separated from nature? How can the human technique of law become compatible with a situated ecological approach? Agroecologist artist Fernando García-Dory and Gaia jurist Xenia Chiaramonte question our artistic and legal imaginaries at the heart of an evolving world, in order to invite us to rethink at the same time biopower as a capacity to “self-organize according to criteria such as care and affection” – criteria to which rurality offers a concrete field of experimentation – and art and law as two practices called to actively engage in favor of a renewed understanding of the categories which govern our actions. Guests Fernando García-Dory is an artist whose work engages specifically with the relationship between culture and nature now, as manifested in multiple contexts, from landscape and the rural, to desires and expectations in relation to identity, through (global) crisis, utopia and the potential for social change. Interested in the harmonic complexity of biological forms and processes, his work addresses connections and cooperation, from microorganisms to social systems, and from traditional art languages drawing to collaborative agroecological projects and actions, and cooperatives. He studied Fine Arts and Rural Sociology, and is now preparing his PhD on Agroecology. He has developed projects and shown his work at Tensta Konsthalle, Van Abbemuseum, Reina Sofia Museum, Documenta 12 and Biennales of Gwangju, Istanbul and Athens. Xenia Chiaramonte is a researcher working primarily on the potential of legal techniques in the time of Gaia. As a thinker but also as an activist, she interrogates the potential of legal imagination in the service of environmental catastrophes and climate breakdown, standing for a situated and pragmatic approach rather than one based on the logic of the universal. She is an affiliated scholar of the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry. Interested social struggles and law, she published the book Governing conflict: The Criminalization of the No TAV Movement (Governare il conflitto: La criminalizzazione del movimento No TAV, 2019) on the political trials against activists in the context of one of the most important and longstanding environmental movements in Europe. She is also experimenting with the genre of science fiction as well—of a special kind that could be thought of “botanical sci-fi” which began with Greetings from the Undergrowth (published on eflux).   Based on a curatorial proposal by Fondation Thalie, this 4th season hosted at the École des Arts Décoratifs is organised by Chiara Vecchiarelli, coordinator of the programme, in co-construction with Patrick Laffont-DeLojo, teacher in stage design at the École des Arts Décoratifs. In partnership with the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris

How can today’s waste and pollution become a solution to feed and sustain humanity? In what ways can organic and artificial intelligence influence post-anthropocentric architecture? And how can we define the new aesthetics of a post-human world? Claudia Pasquero, architect and co-founder of ecoLogicStudio, works on the transformation of our lifestyles and urban landscapes through solutions inspired by non-human elements, such as slime mould, micro-algae, and artificial intelligence. This conversation with Nathalie Blanc, geographer, artist, director of research at the CNRS and director of the Earth Politics Center, will explore their work in favour of an ‘environmental aesthetic’ and new “post-human” architectures that may help us to respond to the climate emergency. In partnership with l’Ecole des Arts Décoratifs - Paris. Co-moderated by Stefano Vendramin, curator and coordinator of the programme ‘Creators facing the Climate Emergency’, and Aurélie Mosse, professor of textile and material design at the École des Arts Décoratifs, and co-director of the Soft Matters research group at Ensadlab. 👉 Subscribe to the podcast and to the newsletter to hear about new episodes: https://www.fondationthalie.org/en/newsletter Instagram & Facebook: @fondationthalie #CreatorsClimateEmergency 🔗 Images, bios & references: https://t.ly/vhfK 📷 Physarum Polycephalum as biological computer © ecoLogicStudio 🎙 Production: Fondation Thalie. Programme coordinator: Stefano Vendramin. Music: Joseph Schiano di Lombo. Editing: Fabrizio d’Elia

“We cooperate to accomplish what we cannot do alone,” writes Richard Sennett, sociologist, author and professor at MIT, Columbia University and the LSE. This statement describes equally well the approach of the Argentinian artist Irene Kopelman, who is currently the subject of an exhibition at MAMAC (Nice), whose artistic practice is underpinned by a long-term engagement with scientists and their subjects, ranging from forests to bacteria. More generally, cooperation, a subject in which Richard Sennett is a specialist, has long played a crucial role in the survival of our species. However, the consequences of the Anthropocene on our planetary resources are now forcing us all to cooperate in unprecedented ways, not only among ourselves, across disciplines and borders, but also with the other species around us. This conversation looks at cooperation as a fundamental tool in the face of our changing climate, through the prism of the relationship between Art and Science. Irene Kopelman lives and works between Amsterdam and her birthplace, Argentina. Fascinated by the cabinets of curiosity and the representation of landscapes by naturalists in the 18th and 19th centuries, she questions this period of exploration and construction of knowledge on natural phenomena. She has carried out numerous research residencies in collaboration with natural history museums, geological collections or nature parks. Her research is embodied in drawings, paintings, texts, editions and installations that evoke fragile ecosystems. She is represented by Jocelyn Wolff gallery. Richard Sennett currently serves as Chair of the UN Habitat Urban Initiatives Group.  He is Senior Fellow at the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University and Visiting Professor of Urban Studies at MIT. Previously, he founded the New York Institute for the Humanities, taught at New York University and at the London School of Economics, and served as President of the American Council on Work. Over the course of the last five decades, he has written about social life in cities, changes in labour, and social theory. His books include The Hidden Injuries of Class, The Fall of Public Man, The Corrosion of Character, The Culture of the New Capitalism, The Craftsman, and Building and Dwelling.  In partnership with l'Ecole des Arts Décoratifs - Paris. Co-moderated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor of design history and theory at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs - Paris, curator and author of “Towards sharing common futures” (Corraini Edizioni, 2021), and Stefano Vendramin, curator and coordinator of the programme ‘Creators facing the Climate Emergency’. 👉 Subscribe to the newsletter to hear about new episodes: https://www.fondationthalie.org/en/newsletter Instagram & Facebook: @fondationthalie #CreatorsClimateEmergency 🔗 Images & references: https://t.ly/mHoSm 📷 Irene Kopelman, Nematostella  in Motion, S5 13 april, enamels on glass, 21 x 31.5 x 19 cm, 2021 🎙 Production: Fondation Thalie. Programme coordinator: Stefano Vendramin. Music: Joseph Schiano di Lombo. Editing: Fabrizio d’Elia

Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto’s installations immerse the viewer in colours, fragrances and sounds, redefining the boundaries between the artwork and the audience and simultaneously serving as models for redefining social environments. The unconventional choice of materials, the simultaneity of internal and external structures, the contrast between the organic and the mechanical, and the qualities of sensuality and tactility, are all deeply inherent to the artist’s practice. Neto was featured in the 57th Venice Biennial ‘Viva Arte Viva’ (2017). He is represented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Galerie Max Hetzler, galería Elba Benitez, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel and Goodman Gallery. Michael Marder is a Canadian philosopher and research professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) in Spain. His writings span the fields of ecological theory, phenomenology, and political thought. He is the author of numerous scientific articles and monographs, including Plant-Thinking (2013); The Philosopher’s Plant (2014); Dust (2016), Green Mass (2021) and Philosophy for Passengers (2022). The conversation is co-moderated by Claudia Paetzold and Stefano Vendramin. Claudia Paetzold is a London and Paris based advisor and curator. Her curatorial practice focuses on evolutionary proposals integrating art, ancestral knowledge, applied sustainability and new technologies, culminating in new ways of creating and experiencing art. Stefano Vendramin is coordinator of the Fondation Thalie programme Creators facing the Climate Emergency, as well as an independent curator specialised in art related to the environment. 👉 Subscribe to the newsletter to hear about new episodes: https://www.fondationthalie.org/en/newsletter Instagram & Facebook : @fondationthalie #CreatorsClimateEmergency 🔗 Images & references: https://t.ly/_NFr 📷 Installation view: Ernesto Neto - Ultimatum, Galerie Max Hetzler, 2022 © Nicolas Brasseur 🎙 Production: Fondation Thalie. Programme coordinator: Stefano Vendramin. Music: Joseph Schiano di Lombo. Editing: Fabrizio d’Elia

Founder and Chair of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21), Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza is an activist, philanthropist and patron of the arts. She has supported many artists in the production and creation of works that engage with the most pressing issues of our times, including commissions by artists Olafur Eliasson, Claudia Comte, Ragnar Kjartensson, Walid Raad, Rikrit Tiravanija and Ai Weiwei. In 2011, she co-founded the TBA21–Academy. Markus Reymann is co-founder and Director of TBA21–Academy, which fosters interdisciplinary dialogue and exchange surrounding the most urgent issues facing our oceans today. 

In 2019, TBA21–Academy launched Ocean Space, a new global port for ocean literacy, research, and advocacy, located in the restored Church of San Lorenzo in Venice, Italy. Markus Reymann is also Chair of Alligator Head Foundation, scientific partner of TBA21–Academy. Sonia Levy’s inquiry-led practice operates at the confluence of diverse knowledge practices tending to the reweaving of multispecies worlds whilst being attentive to histories of entanglements with western colonial extractivist logics. She is the 2022 recipient of the S+T+ARTS4Water’s “The Future of High Waters” residency hosted by TBA21, and was the 2021 commissioned artist at Radar Loughborough and Aarhus University’s Ecological Globalization Research Group.  Jane da Mosto is an environmental scientist and activist based in Venice. She is co-founder and executive director of the NGO We are here Venice, whose mission is to change the future of the city, by protecting its lagoon and rebuilding a more resilient resident population. Jane’s books include The Science of Saving Venice. In 2017 she was honoured with the Osella d’Oro by the city of Venice and in 2021 she received the Fondazione Masi prize for “vision and courage”. Nathalie Guiot is an author, editor, and exhibition curator, and the founder-president of the Fondation Thalie, an exhibition space and artist residency based in Brussels. She is a member of the Centre Pompidou International Circle and Design Acquisition Committee and an active patron of other cultural institutions in France and Belgium. In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, she launched a new online discussion format between artists and scientists, Creators facing the Climate Emergency, which aims to imagine alternative futures regarding the challenges presented by climate change. In partnership with TBA21. 👉 Subscribe to the newsletter to hear about new episodes: https://www.fondationthalie.org/en/newsletter Instagram & Facebook : @fondationthalie #CreatorsClimateEmergency 🔗 Images & references: https://t.ly/V-UH 📷 Ocean Space, Chiesa di San Lorenzo © Enrico Fiorese 🎙 Production: Fondation Thalie. Programme coordinator: Stefano Vendramin. Music: Joseph Schiano di Lombo. Editing: Fabrizio d’Elia

Italian artist Rossella Biscotti uses montage as a gesture to reveal individual narratives and their relation to society. In her cross-media practice, cutting across filmmaking, performance and sculpture, she explores and reconstructs social and political moments from recent times through the subjectivity and experiences of individuals, against the backdrop of a larger institutional system. Her most recent and long-term project The Journey, started in 2016, connects scientific research, oceanography and environmental data using a marble block from the Carrara quarry in Italy, which is dropped into the Mediterranean sea. Biscotti has taken part in major international exhibitions, including the 55th Venice Biennale and 13th Istanbul Biennale, dOCUMENTA 13, and Manifesta 9. She is represented by mor charpentier. Valérie Cabanes is a lawyer in international law, specialised in international humanitarian law and human rights law. In 2013, she participated in the launch of a European citizens’ initiative proposing a European directive on the crime of ecocide, and later worked on a proposal for amendments to the Statute of the International Criminal Court on the crime of ecocide. Ahead of COP21, she founded with a group of lawyers the NGO Notre Affaire à Tous (Our shared responsibility) which works for climate justice in France. She also co-organized the International Tribunal on the rights of nature which took place in Paris in December 2015. Valérie Cabanes is a member of the scientific committee of the journal La pensée écologique (The ecological thinking) and that of the Zoein Foundation, newly founded in Geneva, which support projects reducing inequalities and promoting ecological and social sustainability. She is the author of Rights for the Earth (Natraj publishers, 2018). 👉 Subscribe to the newsletter to hear about new episodes: https://www.fondationthalie.org/en/newsletter Instagram & Facebook : @fondationthalie #CreatorsClimateEmergency 🔗 Images & references: https://t.ly/9N7k 📷 Clara and Other Specimens - Exhibition view, Fondazione Ratti, Como, 2019 © DR. Courtesy Rossella Biscotti 🎙 Production: Fondation Thalie. Programme coordinator: Stefano Vendramin. Music: Joseph Schiano di Lombo. Editing: Fabrizio d’Elia

Thijs Biersteker creates interactive installations about the world’s most pressing issues today. In his work he seamlessly combines scientific research and new technologies to deliver an empowering experience that transforms topics like climate change, air pollution, ocean plastic and the anthropocene into tangible experiences that help people feel the facts and can travel the world to create awareness around these topics. Biersteker holds a teaching position at the Delft University of Technology (NL) and a Fellowship at the VU university in Amsterdam. He is also founder of Woven Studio, which works together with universities, scientists, research groups, museums and architects to communicate their scientific facts in an immersive way. Meriem Bouamrane is an environmental economist, Chief of Section at UNESCO on research and policy on Biodiversity and Ecology in the Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences, Man and the Biosphere (MAB) programme. She is also coordinator of the EuroMAB Network, the oldest and largest network of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves (727 sites in 131 countries). 👉 Subscribe to the newsletter to hear about new episodes: https://www.fondationthalie.org/en/newsletter Instagram & Facebook : @fondationthalie #CreatorsClimateEmergency 🔗 Images & references: https://t.ly/OZtI 📷 Thijs Biersteker, Wither, 2019. Courtesy of Daily Paper and the artist. 🎙 Production: Fondation Thalie. Programme coordinator: Stefano Vendramin. Music: Joseph Schiano di Lombo. Editing: Fabrizio d’Elia