Ecofeminism: does everyday life have “the power of metamorphosis and invention”?
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.
Guests : Suzanne Husky, artist and Geneviève Pruvost, sociologist of work and gender at the Centre d’étude des mouvements sociaux (EHESS).
Co-moderated by Stefano Vendramin, coordinator of the programme and Lucile Encrevé, PhD, art and design historian, professor at the École des Arts Décoratifs.
Ecofeminism questions the links between the destruction of the environment and the oppression of women, both of which are based on a system of violence and domination: can this field of study and action become a source of inspiration and an emancipatory path for contemporary creation, as well as provide additional tools to act in the face of climate change? How can artists and creators, through this prism, transform their practices and invest the political field of the “least gesture” and “inter-subsistence”, by taking inspiration from existing collective struggles (such as those of the Zones À Défendre), by listening to and inventing other narratives, and by turning to other knowledge?
The guests
Trained by the Earth, then in landscape design and agro-ecology, Suzanne Husky develops an artistic practice which observes the forms of domination over the living and their interconnections: can we “work with the Earth” rather than fight against it? Her works take the form of a regenerated soil, a forest garden, a search for the knowledges of the Earth present in tales or a tapestry on birds and the formation and evolution of soils. In 2016, she created with Stéphanie Sagot Le Nouveau Ministère de l’Agriculture [The New Ministry of Agriculture], a fictional institution that aims to unmask the absurdities of French agricultural policies and provides concrete solutions to get out of an extractive model of society.
In 2021, she presents her work at the Villa Medici Film Festival in Rome, the Timișoara Biennial, Transpalette in Bourges, and IAC Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes, as well as at the Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine in Bordeaux (2020), the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2020), the 16th Istanbul Biennial (2019), and most recently the 16th Lyon Biennial of Contemporary Art (2022). Suzanne Husky is represented by the Alain Gutharc Gallery in Paris.
Geneviève Pruvost is a sociologist of work and gender at the Centre d’étude des mouvements sociaux (EHESS). She is a bronze medalist of the CNRS. Her current research focuses on the politicisation of the smallest gesture and ecological alternatives. She has published Profession policier, sexe féminin (Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 2007) and Quotidien politique. Féminisme, écologie, subsistance (La Découverte, 2021). She co-edited the book Penser la violence des femmes (La Découverte poche, 2017).
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
