Fondation Thalie and the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris join forces for the 3rd season of the series Creators facing climate emergency and invite Claudia Pasquero, co-founder of the innovative design lab ecoLogicStudio, and Nathalie Blanc, director of the Earth Politics Centre, to address the topic of the post-human city.
Launched in 2020 by the Fondation Thalie’s founder Nathalie Guiot, the series of conversations Creators facing climate emergency calls upon the creative vision of the artist to imagine alternative futures and to reveal scientific facts through sensory experiences that involve collaboration with scientists and to foster greater knowledge-sharing between these two disciplines.
The full series of conversations is now available as an audio podcast!
Wednesday 11 January, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm (École des Arts Décoratifs)
Guests : Claudia Pasquero, co-founder of ecoLogic Studio and Nathalie Blanc, geographer, artist and director of the Earth Politics Centre.
Co-moderated by Stefano Vendramin, curator of the programme “Creators facing climate emergency”, and Aurélie Mossé, PhD, professor of textile and material design at the École des Arts Décoratifs, and co-director of the Soft Matters research group at Ensadlab.
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, microalgae, and artificial intelligence. This conversation with Nathalie Blanc, 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.
The guests
Claudia Pasquero is an architect, curator and author operating at the intersection of biology, computation and design. She co-founded with Marco Poletto ecoLogicStudio, an architectural and urban design studio which has built up an international reputation for its innovative work on ‘systemic’ design. The London-based studio aims at shaping a definition of a new ecology of space and behavior combining systemic thinking, computational design, bio-hacking and digital prototyping.
EcoLogicStudio’s projects have been exhibited internationally, including at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Design Museum, London, Venice Architecture Biennale, Mori Museum in Tokyo, ZKM Karlsruhe, Saudi Art Biennale in Riyadh, COP26 in Glasgow.
Claudia Pasquero also curated the 2017 Tallinn Architecture Biennale, and co-edited the publication Systemic Architecture – Operating manual for the self-organizing city (Routledge editions, 2012). The forthcoming publication DeepGreen, bio-design in the age of artificial intelligence, will result from the collaboration with the UN for planning a new urban green strategy with Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality.
Nathalie Blanc is Director of Research at the CNRS, Director of the Earth Politics Center, and a pioneer of eco-criticism in France. She has published and coordinated various research programmes, notably on environmental aesthetics, nature in cities and environmental mobilisations. A founding member of the French Environmental Humanities portal, she was also the French delegate for the COST European research network “Investigating cultural sustainability” and subsequently the delegate for the COST European programme on new materialisms “How Matter Matters” (2016-2019).
She is also the author of Form, art, and environment: engaging in sustainability (Routledge, 2016), an artist and curator working on the theme of ecological fragility. Since 2017, Nathalie Blanc has been leading and coordinating the Laboratoire de la Culture Durable, devoted to urban soils in the Anthropocene and sustainable food, which has led to experiments in writing and exhibitions (Domaine de Chamarande, 2016; Ferme des Cultures du Monde, Saint-Denis).
Practical information
6:00pm – 7:00pm, English speaking conversation followed by a drink with the guest speakers.
Free access upon registration.
École des Arts Décoratifs, 31 rue d’Ulm 75005 Paris
Based on a curatorial proposal by Fondation Thalie, this third season hosted at the École des Arts Décoratifs is organised by Stefano Vendramin, coordinator of the programme Creators facing the climate emergency, in co-construction with Francesca Cozzolino, teacher in human and social sciences, and Patrick Laffont-DeLojo, teacher in stage design at the École des Arts Décoratifs.
In partnership with the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris
