#8 – Towards a Green Soul culture GREEN SOUL, The Anthropocene, cultures, imaginaries

The 8th ‘Green Soul’ conference on cultures and imaginaries in the Anthropocene era, devised and led by art historian and curator Paul Ardenne, continues at the ESA Saint-Luc and closes the cycle initiated by the Foundation in November 2023.

While new human-Earth alliances are being forged, and these are signs of hope, they do not prevent a negative position from making its way deeper and deeper into the mentalities of the early 21st century – anthropophobia, the hatred of the destructive human. What are the arguments against anthropophobia: the gamble on ‘adaptability’, the belief in the possibility of an authentic ‘cultural ecology’ with corrective, healing and restorative virtues? A new psyche needs to be conceived and, as a major challenge, we need to agree to make it our own, against the darkness and negation of the self and of ‘us’.

Paul Ardenne has a degree in History and a doctorate in Arts and Art Sciences. He is a contributor to the journals Art press, Archistorm and INTER-Art actuel, and is the author of several books: Art, l’âge contemporain (1997), L’Art dans son moment politique (2000), L’Image Corps (2001), Un Art contextuel (2002), Art, le présent (2009), Un Art écologique. Création plasticienne et anthropocène (2018), L’Art en joie. Aesthetics of joyful humanity (2023). He is also a novelist and specialist in architecture (Terre Habitée, 2005; La Bonne ville, 2019; Le Boost et le frein – Comment l’humain bâtit au 21e siècle?, 2021…).

As a curator of contemporary art, Paul Ardenne has designed numerous exhibitions, the most recent of which are “Dendromorphies. Creating with trees” (Paris, 2016), “Courants verts. Creating for the environment” (Paris, 2019) and “L’anthropocène et après” (Saint-Denis de la Réunion, 2020). He has produced several programmes on France Culture devoted to art in the age of the Anthropocene (“L’art est l’environnement“, January 2023) and is a regular contributor to the series of programmes The World in Images, on the ARTE television channel.